Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): While the state media continued to deny that the army used live bullets to disperse the peaceful protesters marching toward the Pearl Roundabout, the doctors were showing the world x-rays that proved that bullets had penetrated the protesters' bodies. The regime spokespersons denied the presence of fatal cases which resulted from the events that took place on 17 and 18 February, in the mean time the doctors were informing the world about the cases in Salmaniya Hospital and the horrible injuries that claimed the lives of five protesters in only two days. They talked about other fatal injuries, and injuries aimed to vital parts of the body.

The death certificates which were issued by those doctors confirmed that. The doctors' statements condemned the regime violence. Their sit-ins deplored it. The doctors spoke about it to the international news agencies. All of that became an annoyance to the authorities which wanted to hide their violations from the world. The medical staff threatened the regime in a new way. They were not politicians, but doctors who testified of what they had witnessed. They were human beings. The atrocities shook them. Those atrocities had been inflicted on their own country men who were peacefully demanding their legitimate rights .
The regime started to think of ways to eliminate the medical staff who were exposing its atrocities to the world.


The Embarrassing Rose

On Saturday February 19, in the morning people flocked to Salmaniya Hospital to donate blood and show solidarity with the wounded and injured. Foreign journalists were covering the event in the hospital. The hospital administration including the Minister of Health Mr. Faisal AlHamar ignored the event and the people.
SMS messages and messages over Facebook circulated calling for demonstrations at 3 PM to start marching from several areas: Sanabis, Noaim, and Manama toward the Pearl Roundabout. The objective was to lift the siege around the roundabout that had been imposed by the army and security troops and to liberate the roundabout. The method was to confront the army weapons and bullets with roses. It would be the first time roses would be held in demonstrations, and to be, later, the trademark of the revolution.
Earlier than declared, at 1PM, thousands of protesters poured from Sanabis area toward the barbed wire fence. The troops fenced that area half kilometer away from the roundabout by a barbed wire. Another group of protesters marched toward the roundabout from Salmaniya. The anti-riot police attacked this group by tear gas but the attack was not as violent as it had been in the previous days. The attack left a number of suffocation and fainting cases that were transported to Salmaniya Hospital. Mr. Ebrahim Sharif the Secretary General of Waad Political Society talked to the security forces and asked their commander to allow the peaceful and unarmed protesters to gather for a sit-in. The commander did not object and said they did not receive orders to use force.
The march toward the roundabout continued. Some youths proceeded toward the barbed wire fence raising their roses and wrapping themselves in Bahraini flags. They started their peaceful tactics with the security forces. The youths managed to pass some roses  to the security troops through the barbed wires to confirm the peacefulness of the movement. A girl was at the lead to pass her roses to the police. The police did not use their violent means, but reluctantly accepted the roses.


Liberating the Roundabout

At that time, Bahrain TV was showing a speech for the Crown Prince ordering the immediate withdrawal of the military troops from the streets, as a prelude to the public mourning and to the dialog with youth movement and political and societal figures. The military vehicles and the security troops started their withdrawal. The army declared its second statement. Statement Number 2, the withdrawal of the military troops from the capital. The security troops rode their buses and SUVs. The youth helped the troops move amid warm applaud. “We threw the roses toward the security and military vehicles expressing our peacefulness. We wanted to say to them we did not want any confrontation with anyone in our homeland, and all of us are for Bahrain” One of the participating young men said.

In minutes, the youths cut and removed the barbed wire fence and, hurriedly, marched the distance to the roundabout, to open the roundabout again. Soon SMS messages were exchanged.” The roundabout has been liberated”, “Go the Martyrs' Square”. The youths were surprised that some ambulances had reached the roundabout before them. Seven vehicles were equipped with paramedics and medical materials and deployed at the roundabout area in anticipation of any emergency. The return to the roundabout was loaded with contradictory emotions: the awe of blood and the elation of victory. Some people knelt in prayer. A second group collapsed weeping their lost loved ones feeling the warmth of blood that had been shed two days ago. A third group gathered the police violent traces: rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, and various shots cartridges. A fourth group gathered traces of the people, a shoe here, a slipper there, a girl's doll, a shoe of a baby that did not exceed two years, and a milk bottle of another baby. Those were the remnants that were testimonies of the cruel attack. Those little things were gathered in an exhibition to narrate the story of that attack that took place in the dawn. Exhibitions were improvised every a couple of meters. Since then they started to call it the Martyrs' Square. They bought garbage containers and started to clean the roundabout and the neighboring streets. Using stones, some of them wrote on the ground “We love Bahrain and yearn for the welfare of all its people”.

Thousands flowed in,  feeling that their peaceful gathering had been sanctioned by the Crown Princes' speech. The roses added splendor to the place. Sadness mixed with roses, and weeping with happiness. The people were laughing and crying, chanting and surprised by what they saw. They lived mixed feelings, but all were proud. One said: “One of the most beautiful scenes I saw was a young man who was planting a little plant, I asked him why, he said for the martyrs' souls”.

A large number of lawyers, activists and diplomats joined the protesters at the roundabout. The medical staff who finished their shift at 2:15PM came to join the protesters in their happy return, and to confirm that they would be available voluntarily during their non-working hours beside the protesters in their sit-in to provide the medical care when needed.


 Salmaniya Hospital Camp

In the next two days, the situation became calm. The protesters in the safe roundabout expressed their demands peacefully. Under the effect of the Crown Princes' initiative, Bahrain TV tried to be neutral toward the protesters for less than two days. Then as a source from Bahrain TV revealed: “Orders came to us from higher up. Abort the dialog initiative”. The media would have the greater role in inciting the Sunni public opinion against the popular movement and especially against the doctors. The doctors would be accused of unprecedented charges in the national movement history as well as in the history of the medical profession.

At Salmaniya Hospital courtyard, a debate raged. Some doctors believed that “As far as the youths havebeen allowed to sit-in at the roundabout, let's work to end the sit-in at the Salmaniya Hospital courtyard”. But the “Feb 14 Youths” thought differently. “There should be another assembly point other than the roundabout. When one is attacked, people can gather at the other one”. The doctors tended to end all the sit-ins at the hospital. A doctor said: “After that intense debate between the doctors and the Feb 14 Youths, we were surprised by a group of young men erecting tents: one for women, a second for tea and a third for an exhibition of the various tools that had been used by the security forces to suppress the protests. A podium was positioned”. He added “Personally I was in a hot debate with the leader of the group. The medical staff objected to that. The courtyard turned into a crowding place”. The Feb 14 Youth group action was a valuable service that the protesters offered to the regime. The regime was looking for a way to eliminate the troubling medical staff. The charge was ready, hijacking Salmaniya Hospital by the medical staff and the Shia protesters, and converting it into an exclusive den.

A number of doctors including the consultant Dr. Ali AlEkri are being tried before a martial tribunal for the charge of organizing a sit-in, crowding, erecting tents at Salmaniya Hospital courtyard and turning it into operations center to overthrow the regime. However, Walid AlManea (the hospitals CEO), testified as a prosecution witness in a statement in the police records that the tents had been erected at the hospital courtyard by an organizing committee in the roundabout not by the doctors. The under-secretary Ameen Assaati contacted the Minister of Health Mr. Faisal Alhamar and told him that the sit-in and the tents might have caused traffic jam in the parking lots. But the Minister agreed and said it would be for a short period.

 That testimony should have cleared the doctors and put the previous Minister in that trial. Was the Minister's acceptance of the tents in the hospital courtyard a premeditated plan to target the medical staff?
 “I've never heard Ali AlEkri demand the downfall of the regime, in all the demonstrations that he was at the lead of, he chanted o' my homeland, o' my homeland for you my love and soul [a popular nationalistic song in the Arab World]. That was the chant he always repeated. He also frequently recited a verse of a poem [a well-known poem by a Tunisian Poet died in 1934] if the nation ever wanted life the fate has to respond”One of Dr. AlEkri's female colleagues said.

The medical staff continued their marches toward the roundabout. Two days a week and after their official working hours at 3PM they moved from the hospital to the roundabout. There, in the roundabout, was a tent provided with equipment and materials. A female doctor said: “In the medical tent, we had simple preparations. Beds for the patients and oxygen that were brought after a permission was secured from the under-secretary Ameen Assaati. We had medicines that were brought from Arrazi Medical Center after it was permitted by the under-secretary Mariam AlJalahma”. The doctor added: “The protesters brought to us a lot of donations. They brought medicines from their homes that they didn't need. Private pharmacies supplied us with medicines. We bought other medicines that were not available in the health centers. The cases that visited the tent, during the calm period, were simple and few that we transferred to Salmaniya Hospital”. She added: “The presence of the doctors at the roundabout was not to sit-in, but to provide the health care for the protesters. It is known internationally that if there is an assembly of people there should be a medical center to care for the cases that might take place”.


Mariam AlJalahma's Trap

under-secretaries AlJalahma & Assaati... Denieing the doctors.. after a thanking letter

The medical staff agreed to alternate working in the medical tent according to their free time.”At the podium, AlEkri said to everyone: no one leaves their work or fall short of it. No one should leave their work place and come with us. Marching in the demonstrations is only after the working hours. If you see me leave operations and march that is because I'm on an annual leave, and I come here as Ali AlEkri the person not Ali AlEkri the doctor” A nurse said.

The under-secretaries Mariam AlJalahma and Ameen Assaati offered a shift allowance for the medical staff attending the cases in the medical tent at the roundabout. The staff rejected the offer, considering themselves performing a humanitarian task toward their homeland. Mariam AlJalahma sent them a Thank-you letter.  “Dear Colleagues, What our kingdom has passed through showed the real bright side of the medical staff, the nursing staff, the paramedics staff and all the health workers. They clearly showed the real image of the Bahraini citizens in the difficult times. No one can find a suitable reward for those people who exerted tremendous efforts during the past days in treating the injured and adhering to the work progress in all the facilities of the Ministry of Health. To them thousands salutations”. The letter was a motivation and encouragement. Later things changed, and AlJalahma interrogated the staff and brought them to account because of their commendable efforts that turned criminal.


The Hijacking Rumor

On Feb 26, and after consecutive sit-ins by the medical staff to sack the Minister of Health and his administrative team. A royal order was issued to sack the Minister of Health Faisal AlHamar and appointingNezar AlBaharna as a minister. “We felt that sacking the minister was a victory for our protest movement. We aspired to sack the under-secretary Abdulhay AlAwadi who alone is a focal point of corruption” A medical staff said.

However, sacking the minister was the start of a fierce media campaign against the doctors and it seemed the regime wanted to spare him that campaign. After appointing a new Shia minister, the media campaign started under the motto of “Shia Hijacked Salmaniya”. The regime journalists, its officials, its politicians, its preachers and above all Bahrain TV took part in that campaign. The charges that were dealt profusely to the medical staff were: damaging the medical work in Salmaniya Hospital and the Health Centers and moving to the roundabout leaving their patients in hospital and medical centers without any care. Anonymous phone calls and messages over Twitter and Facebook started attacking the medical staff and the new minister.
 
 Some of those rumors were: the entry to the hospital was subjected to an identity investigation by the hijackers [the medical staff and the people of the roundabout] , they searched the Sunni visitors and interviewed them,  Sunni patients were ignored, the Emergency Department in Salmaniya Hospital was monopolized by the protesters, the emergency cases were delayed, there were two death cases because of the delay of the ambulances and the negligent doctors, and entry to the emergency required waiting two hours because of the sit-in and the tents and required other two hours to leave.
All of those rumors were sent to Sunni people through anonymous sources, who then would trade those rumors. The objective was to divert the protesting movement to a Sunni-Shia issue and drop the medical staff credibility.

The salafist saudi TV channel Wessal, that worked side by side with the Bahraini state media in fueling the sectarian tension, received a call from a Sunni lady named herself "Umm Mohammed". She denied all the rumors saying that she had visited Salmaniya Hospital more than once during that period, she had not been searched, neither asked about her sect or delayed. She added that her relative had been admitted to the hospital and received all the care and attention from the medical staff who as she said were Shia. She continued that the aim of those circulating such rumors was to harm the national unity and stirring sedition.

 The Minister Baharna

The new Shia Health Minister faced an opposition from the Sunnis who were led by the “National Unity Gathering” that considered sacking the previous minister and appointing the new one as a threat to them.

 The new minister had to handle various issues: the legacy of the previous minister's mistakes, the legacy of the protests and the sit-in at the hospital courtyard, as well as dealing with the burden of the accusations of treason and hijacking that were meant as a stigma to the medical staff. He faced those attacks along with the medical staff. Later he would be considered responsible for everything and should be brought to account. In an interview in Al-Ayam daily in Bahrain on March 9, and after two weeks in the position, the new minister denounced the war of rumors and mobilization that was harmful to the country and said: “Let's work, if there are closed-minded people then let the open-minded and decent people work together for the sake of the country”. Then he complained against the media that worked not only to abort the national dialog by orders “from higher up” but to abort the whole country. He added: “I talked to the protesters in the sit-in, and they promised me that they would leave tomorrow, but after the program that had been aired by Bahrain TV and had accused them, they insisted on their stance and decided to stay in the sit-in.

 We have to work together to pass this crisis”. He said that while critisizing the deliberate aggravation that the media and other many parties worked on since the moment he had been appointed.

What awaited the doctors? How the media would broadcast some manipulated scenes that were taken out of their context and directed toward the would-be charges. How the doctors would live the financial harbor and University of Bahrain's events? That will be in next part.