Amnesty International urges Bahrain to end torture after sex abuse report

Amnesty International has called on Bahrain to put an end to torturing government critics and all other forms of human rights violations after a report revealed sexual abuse of a female activist during interrogation.

Amnesty made the call in a Thursday report, after Bahraini human rights activist Ebtisam al-Saegh told the rights group she was tortured and sexually assaulted while in detention for seven hours at the National Security Agency (NSA) in Muharraq, northeast of the capital Manama, last week.

“The state must end all forms of reprisals it is currently using against human rights defenders and government critics, targeted solely for the peaceful exercise of their freedom of expression,” Amnesty International said.
“They beat me on my nose and they kicked me in the stomach, knowing that I had undergone surgery on my nose and that I was suffering from my colon,” Saegh told Amnesty.

“I could hear an electric device next to me, which was to scare me. I was made to stand up for most of the time,” the report cited her as saying.