Faisal Hayyat :Jail Tale (Part 2) A Photo and 84 Days

2011-09-16 - 7:08 ص

Faisal Hayyat (Bahrain Mirror): It was Thursday, 7^th April 2011, at ten in the evening I received a phone call from the Noaim Police Station summoning me for questioning. I was not surprised, as I had been expecting the call for three days after my picture and name had been thrown in the TV programme “Exclusive Event” on Bahrain TV (BTV) channel.

In those days, a word had spread and become like a saying among people: “If you want to know what the authority intends to do during the daytime, watch BTV at the previous night”, and another saying: “If you want to know the next target of repression, follow BTV and you will find an organised campaign against them”. Those sayings were not sort of exaggeration, but a reality that the street suffered during the height of the crisis. The examples are more than I can cite here. However, the athletes' arrests including me was one of the examples.

Not only that, but you would find BTV had turned into a Prosecutor General that arrested suspects and confronted them with what it called charges, misdemeanour or treasons. It questioned them on air, then it showed the evidence (usually a picture of a participation in a rally), then it turned into a tribunal issuing treason verdicts with no amnesty, on the next day or in a few days came the execution.

Reception
At the gate of Noaim Police Station, I went forward and showed my smart ID card to the policeman there. He took me to the station courtyard where I was received by a policeman in plainclothes who immediately blindfolded with a white cloth. He led me inside the station building. They kept my glasses, my car keys, my mobile and my pants belt. I was led blindfolded into a corridor of rooms, where I ended facing the wall in one of those rooms. Then he ordered one of them to handcuff my hands from the front.

For a period of not less than ten minutes, words of cursing and swearing all that I received from a policeman of a Yemeni origin. They did not hesitate from saying the most venomous name calling to me, to my belief and to my sect: son of the Roundabout, Ravdi, Magi, Safavid, Iranian, son of Muta'a (temporary marriage) ... and other names that did not spare anyone of Shia origin, they said them everywhere excessively and none of them was prohibited from saying them.

With the barrage of curses and swearing, the policemen (because of their Yemeni origin) reminded me of a previous participation in the programme "Al-Majlis" on Al-Kass Qatari channel when I presented the idea of not assigning organising the Gulf Cup to Yemen but to Bahrain, that was accompanied with severe beating on my head and neck. Then they got the orders to move my handcuff to the back, they told me to forget that I was a media worker as I would not get a special treatment for that.

Amid the beatings and verbal abuse they were asking me questions unrelated to politics or participations in its activity, they focused on: "

- How much's your salary?
- To whom do you refer in religious issues?
- How could you say that Yemen should've n't organised the Gulf Cup?
- How much are you paid by Al-Kass channel?
- How can you say that it was the right of the player Mohammed Hubail not to join the team to Yemen?
- Do you have a house?
- How many children do you have?
- Where does your wife work?"

Then they started a variety of questions about the extent of my knowledge of some people e.g. Mahmood Abu Idrees, Ala Al-Halwachi and Ahmed Hamza. An order was issued by a commander there to remove my shoes and throw me to the floor.

The Shrimp
They immediately tied my hands to my feet in a position known as "The Shrimp". The detainee is dumped on his stomach, his face facing the floor and his feet and hands are tied together and raised upwards. For another period that was less than ten minutes, one of them thrashed my feet beating without pause. He was creative in beating me and took pleasure in hearing my cries of pain. I realised then how minutes turned into non-passing hours. I felt that blood had frozen in my limbs.

Then the executioner ordered the policemen to take me to another place, saying: "Take him to walk". I realised that it was below the police station stairs. The aim of allowing me to walk was to allow the blood to flow in my frozen feet. I was not able to stomp on my feet for the severe pain, but I knew I had to move them otherwise I would suffer a health problem. It was like walking on crushed glass strewn on the floor.

I remained lying on the floor below the stairs for around ten minutes, no sooner the blood had circulated in my joints than they dragged me again to the torture chamber. The policeman ordered me to keep silent. He took me to a chamber where one of the detainees being questioned. I knew later, it was Ala Al-Halwachi Head of Volleyball Department in Al-Ahli club. He was asked if he had seen me in athletes' rally. I heard him say: "I saw the picture that was shown on TV".

The Writing Hand
Then I was taken again below the stairs. I was told to sleep there. I looked at the floor and I said to myself how I would spend my night on the floor? I never said a word, and lied my body to the floor. Soon I heard the sound of steps of one of them standing at my head. "Get up" he yelled at me. They dragged me to the torture room again, and there they resumed beating me on my feet by a hose. Then the executioner asked me: "Which hand you write with?". I said to myself: "I won't sacrifice one hand, so my both hands should share what will strike them of punishment for the act of writing". I replied: "I write with both hands". He rushed beating both of them until I felt that I had lost feeling my hands. During that he was insulting and cursing me.

Then he ordered me to stand facing the wall while I was blindfolded and handcuffed. I did not know specifically how much time went while I was standing amid the swelling of my feet and my hands handcuffed to the back. It seemed that my situation turned around the sympathy of one of them who brought me a glass of water, and told me that I spent almost three complete hours standing. They took me to the reception counter of the police sation where the blindfold was lifted off my eyes, and presented a statement to sign, I signed, and then was taken to the detention chamber, where I spent my first night.

That was my reception night at the jail. I did not know what awaited me on the next day. But I knew that I would not leave in days and I would not be back home and to my children soon. There was a lot waiting for me. My body was groaning of pain.

Faisal Hayyat :Jail Tale (Part 2) A Photo and 84 Days

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