Al Khalifa mistreating Bahraini political prisoners: Ex-MP

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jalal Fairooz, former Bahraini MP in London, about several international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) calling on the Bahraini regime to immediately release human rights activist, Abduljalil al-Singace, who has been on hunger strike for the past 160 days.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel about this case? Certainly 160 days on hunger strike is quite a long time.

Fairooz: It is very obvious that the government of Bahrain is not caring about the prisoners, especially the ones with diseases and with illnesses. There is mistreatment of the prisoners after all and also the ones which require some treatment. There is very careless situation there.

Dr. Abduljalil is a prominent figure of the opposition, he is a writer, a journalist, an academic, he was detained very [forcefully] and he has been subjected to torture with his colleagues and he is serving life sentence for nothing but asking for democracy for Bahrain, asking for the legitimate right of the people to protest against the dictatorship in Bahrain.

Dr. Abduljalil has been on strike [for] 160 days. He is in a very bad health situation but it seems that the government is not caring about that. Dr. Abduljalil actually started his strike because there was mass mistreatment against the political prisoners in Jaw in last March, and that severe situation is still there.

Actually there are some Jordanian soldiers who were brought to Bahrain to crack down on the prisoners, the protests inside the prisons. The situation is getting very deteriorated in Bahrain. Just last month, another figure of the opposition Sheikh Hasan Isa was abducted, and also now you have four of the heads of the political parties in Bahrain…inside the jail, and of course you have thousands of Bahrainis as political prisoners, and it seems that the international community and US and UK are not caring about them.

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