Faisal Hayyat -Jail Tale (Part 3) : I’m dying

2011-09-23 - 2:52 م

My First Daytime
The night was slow in the detention chamber. Sleep was elusive amid the detainees' screams who were being tortured in the adjacent chambers. On Friday morning, a policeman brought me a sheet titled "Medical Check Form", and two charges were written on it: crowding and incitement of hatred against the regime. The latter charge struck me with immense horror. "Incitement? I'm an instigator?" I refused to sign. One of the officials ordered me to comply fully to the policemen's orders and not to refuse anything, and amid assurances of the detainees young men who were with me in the same detention chamber, I signed the form. The detainees told me that it was a mere form to allow for the medical check. I was blindfolded all the time, and still suffered severe pains in my hands and my feet soles after the night beatings. I was unable to move them neither lifting them off the floor.

At the noon prayers time, I asked a policeman to point me to Mecca direction. He pointed me to the opposite direction. It was an issue I knew after a new detainee had been brought to the detention chamber. I prayed hastily and in fear. In minutes, some one came calling for me. I was dragged handcuffed and blindfolded to the torture chamber. As soon as I entered, four to five people jumped on me beating me severely. I was able to determine their number of their voices. They hit me with whatever they had: hoses, electrical cables, punches on various parts of my body and boots kicks. Everyone was hitting me at the same time. There was no breath between the hit and the following one, they were combined hits that you felt that you had no room to breathe. Everyone swore, cursed, insulted and dishonoured my religious belief.

Who gets out?
I was screaming strongly for the severe beating. I begged them to stop beating me: "I'm dying, please, I can't bear more". Their reply was ready: "You'll die here, don't rush your fate". They ordered me to say the slogan written on the placard that I had held in the journalists' rally. I said: "Free, Free Press" and I stopped. They even beat me more, and said: "Go on, what was after Free, Free Press?", I did not reply. They beat me even more. I screamed confessing: "... get out". I pronounced the senior official's name whose name I would not disclose now. Their beatings even grew more brutal and said to me: "Now you'll know who gets out".

I did not know for how much time I was in the torture chamber. They sent me back to the detention chamber. I threw my collapsing body, not believing what was going on to me, feeling that I was in a dark tunnel without any glimmer of light. They brought the lunch meal. I was unable to eat anything as I was in panic and horror of my ordeal and of what I heard of the detainees' screams in the adjacent chambr.

After half an hour they called me again. I was completely collapsed, my feet were unable to carry my body neither was my body able to make my feet move. One of the policemen dragged me to the same chamber. It was the same chamber, I knew it of the distance of the way, from the number of steps, that way I sensed my arrival to it, and said to myself: "My God, back to you once again!!".

As soon as I stepped in, they assaulted me: punching, then beating by hoses, then by fists, then kicks. The executioners were careful not to harm my face, as it was the most prominent part and more scandalous. I got strong slaps on the face by their hands, no fists, but a stray punch hit my nose and caused me severe bleeding that forced them to stop and send me to the detention chamber.

Sexual Harassment
On my way to the detention chamber, across corridors among chambers, I was subjected to explicit sexual harassment by a policeman. He lowered my pants and expressed his unrestrained desire to assault me sexually (!!!) I was about to faint and fall headlong after hearing what he had said. I entered into a fit of hysteric crying and pleaded him: "I'm a father and have children, please, don't do that to me, torture me as you wish, but I plead to you with the most precious things you have not to do that". That took place when we passed by the detention chamber. I knew later that we had been in the Police Station courtyard at the entrance. The event was meant to humiliate me deliberately in front of those who were present for taking revenge watching me as a humiliated detainee without dignity, there was no respect to my humanity that was violated among the policemen's laughter. After that the one with the same voice pulled up my pants and made me face the wall, then he started with the others to grope my body parts and was keen to press the front part of his body to the back side of my body.

My Masters' Head
A policeman from a Pakistani origin took me back to the detention chamber again. I propped myself to the wall in what seemed a total breakdown. I needed to pick up my breath, but I was not spared of the barrage of curses, insults and spitting at me by the policemen. They were young, in addition to a man in plainclothes who peered in time and again and threatened me: "I'll make you a man, so that you don't be head to head with your masters, specially ..." and he mentioned the senior official's name.

After all those hours of physical and psychological torture, I was in a dire need to the toilets. I was hesitant for the extreme fear, terror and torture that I suffered. Finally, I mustered the courage and asked to be taken there, where a policeman of a Yemeni origin took me amid blows to my head and neck from all those I passed by on the way.

The policeman took me back to the detention chamber and after minutes I was sent along with others to the internal ward in the Police Station. There I saw nursing uniforms soaked in blood, and a detainee who would become my friend whose name was Hussain Ayyad from Hajar area. His face looked horrible. His features had almost vanished and were stained in various colours (purple, black, blue, yellow). He was unable to move for the brutal torture that he had suffered at the Qudaibiyya Police Station which what was revealed after several days when he told me his arrest story.

I was desperate for some comfort after a long and hard day fraught with varieties of beatings and torture. I threw my battered body on one of the beds. I tried to sleep but to no avail because of the screams coming from the torture chambers and because of the ward design, where an eye could not close for the sound of the door latch colliding with the iron door. I spent my second night among my body groans. "Has one day only passed?" I asked myself. It seemed I was in hell long ago.

The Humiliation Honour

In the morning of the following day (Saturday 9 April 2011), a policeman called for me. He blindfolded and handcuffed me again. He took me to the Military Prosecutor. He ordered me to take off my clothes to see the torture marks. Then he asked me about my relationship with the athletes' rally. I denied that. What confused me most was that questioning me while I was blindfolded and another one was throwing abusive words and insults at me in front of the Military Prosecutor: "Son of Muta'a (temporary marriage), traitor, Magi, Safavid, Iranian...etc".

I left the interrogation chamber with the Military Prosecutor. After a few minutes I was taken to the ward again amid slaps, punches and kicks from anyone who met me in the way, with continuous insults, curses and spitting. By the way, it was what every detainee without exception was subjected to. They were boasting before each other that they were taking part in the honour of humiliating and torturing us in every situation, at every time and in every place. One would slap you while he was on his way, a second would kick you, a third would spit at you, a fourth would punch you, and a fifth would insult you. All of that while they were laughing.

As ever, when a detainee returned to the ward, the detainees surrounded me to know what had happened. I told them about what happened with the Military Prosecutor. After that the detainees were called one after the other.

The second day passed, without me knowing the crime I had done that deserved me all that hatred and without contacting my family, a lawyer, nor having any right that could guarantee me a fair treatment amid the law of jungle that was named "National Safety Law".

You will be a man!
By the third day, visits by the army (Bahrain Defence Force) staff members grew in number. They came particularly to me, not to any other detainee. On the first day a man wearing the traditional Arab dress (white robe and head cover) came in. His face was uncovered, he said to me in front of the other detainees in cellar No. 2: "You will be a man here. I'll make you know how to be a man, so you know who (he mentioned that senior official's name) is". He finished his talk and left amid my utter surprise, "Who is that man? What he wanted from me?".

On that day I was allowed to go the the bathroom and bathe for the first time. I did not have extra clothes. I bathed and put on the same clothes. It was not only my situation, but many other detainees were like that. On the fourth day I was allowed to phone my wife for a minute and a half. My only sentence to her was: "I'm fine, don't worry about me". My wife only said: "Faisal, you have to eat well". I did not know how she knew that I was not eating. From the call my wife knew that I was in Noaim Police Station. She took the initiative and immediately brought clothes for me. A policeman who was good to us told me that my wife had brought clothes for me. When they brought the bag, I imagined my wife putting the clothes in it and in what status she was. I was very moved and cried.

The plainclothed man with Arab dress (the long white robe and the head cover) continued to call for me everyday. He and another policeman assaulted me after being taken out of the ward. It persisted everyday, with a new tool in the terror campaign that was targeted at me. The new tool was the army member. They called for me at the late hours of the night to exercise extra torture rituals against me. They took me blindfolded and handcuffed. They assaulted me by beatings. They beat my buttocks, calves and head. They were careful not to hit me on the face as I mentioned earlier, to avoid leaving any mark. After about an hour they would send me completely exhausted back to the ward.

Before the Dry Dock
One day, a seemingly high ranking officer entered. He took off his rank badges from his shoulders as well as his nameplate from his chest. Unlike the other plainclothed and uniformed policemen who were behind him, his face was uncovered. In front of all the detainees who were with me in the ward he asked in hysteric anger about my picture that was shown on the TV: "You thought you were a hero? Raising your hand wanting to overthrow the regime". I answered him: "I did not take part in the athletes' rally, and my picture that was shown in the sports programme was a participation in the journalists' rally. I didn't demand the downfall of the regime, but chanted for the press freedom and the fraternity between Sunni and Shia". He slapped me in the face saying: "Don't lie, they said to me not to hit him to the face!!". Then he ordered one of the policemen to torture me in the cellar in front of the other detainees. A policeman wearing a balaclava pushed me to the floor and started stomping over me by his boots, he stomped over all my body parts. I felt that he wanted to crush me to the floor. I was writhing in front of everyone including the detainees. They were shocked why me in particular to get that much of beating and deliberate humiliation? Then the officer snapped at me and ordered me to stand up facing the wall. He left with the other policemen. My friends in the ward surrounded me and asked me to sit down, but I remained standing up. I said to them that I felt completely exhaused. After a while I threw my body on the bed searching for myself amid all that confusion and terror.

That same routine continued with me; the same plainclothed man assaulted and insulted me for nearly nine days. At that time I had completed thirteen days of detention. On the last day before transferring me to the Dry Dock prison, the same plainclothed man in his traditional Arab clothes came. He blindfolded and handcuffed me as usual and took me to an adjacent chamber, and started beating me, then he poured a liquid on my head. He grabbed my head and banged it into every wall that we passed by, until he put my head close to a small container that emitted a smell of gasoline. He asked me: "What is that?" I replied: "Gasoline". He said: "I'll burn you with this gasoline". Then he stopped me opposite the wall and came near to my ear and said: "We'll cut your hand and tongue, you and that rotten Razzago (derogatory diminutive of Addulrazzaq)", and he meant the director of the national teams and the former international player Addulrazzaq Mohammed. While his brutality and attempts to terrorise me were building up I felt that it was my last day in that place; either for transfer or release. In the early dawn hours, my intuition was right, I was transferred along with other detainees to the Dry Dock prison.

Faisal Hayyat -Jail Tale (Part 3) : I’m dying

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