A Muslim female doctor in the kingdom of Bahrain, who was sentenced to five years in prison for helping injured anti-government protestors, has claimed that she was dragged out of her house at midnight at gunpoint by about 30 plain-clothes police officers
A Muslim female doctor in the kingdom of Bahrain, who was sentenced to five years in prison for helping injured anti-government protestors, has claimed that she was dragged out of her house at midnight at gunpoint by about 30 plain-clothes police officers
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The Daily Mail quoted Dr Fatima Haji as saying that she was then taken blindfolded to a secret interrogation centre, before being tortured and repeatedly sexually assaulted until she signed documents confessing her 'crimes'.
Dr Haji was one of 20 doctors and nurses who were sentenced to jail terms of between five and 15 years at a special military tribunal on Friday. Although she is currently on bail, but reports suggest that the authorities can put her in jail any time and insist that she challenges her sentence from prison.
Dr Haji, who has a three-year-old son, Yusuf, said: "Every time I hug my boy, it could be my last. Every time I call him to me, I know it could be the last time I hold him."
"I don't know how many men there were as I was blindfolded, but I heard many voices. They said they would rape me. They told me they knew which nursery Yusuf was in, and would get him. That's when I broke and said I'd do anything they wanted," she added.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0
She was among 3,000 staff working at the Salmaniya Medical Complex hospital in Manama when the protests erupted.u00a0u00a0u00a0
Speaking to The Mail on Sunday by telephone, she said that the majority of the casualties were taken there for treatment, and the hospital became a focus for the world's media.
"We were filmed treating patients. This meant we appeared on the Al-Jazeera TV news channel and the government did not like that," she added.