Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): "It was only three-days of ordeal inside torture cells. I was released due to my illness. But it was enough to ruin my life more than the pernicious lymph. I defeated the latter, however, the former still staring at me. One day, inevitably, I will crush it!"

Everyone of us has their own box. In that box, we hide our pains, frustrations and bitter experiences. We try to isolate it from our thinking to avoid being dragged to it, however, unknowingly, we find ourselves in its traps. Keeping the box closed is not the solution. The solution is to open for talking and confrontation. We will not override that box unless we release its grip on our inside.


After Nabeel left detention on 13 April 2011, he remained silent for a month. Later, he asked to meet with me. I thought he decided to open his detention ordeal to talk after my persistent request. He did not want me for that. "It was too early to talk about my short-lived time in jail" He said.

He wanted me for something different. "The mental and physical torture that the detainees undergo leave perilous marks on their minds. The excessive, humiliating and degrading torture doesn't go away easily. If left untreated, it takes over the victim. The victim may collapse. Not everyone is able to overtake their experience alone. Some need to be rehabilitated to treat the bad effects. So I want to establish an organisation to rehabilitate the victims of torture. I want to establish it now with a couple of doctors, psychologists, lawyers, journalists and volunteering activists. I talked to a couple of colleagues and they are excited about the idea. We're going to establish it now and declare it at the right time. That's way I asked you to come."

I saw it as a fantastic and important idea. I did not know then that Nabeel was talking about himself too. Even he looked at the others through his ordeal impact. He felt he was one of those who needed rehabilitation. He was one of those psychologically traumatised after that humiliating and degrading ordeal. So he wanted to establish such a project to include all of those and treat them including him.

It was not the first time that Nabeel suggested the idea of "Rehabilition". In 2008 he joined the General Secretariat

 of the Bahraini Society of Human Rights and led "Al-Karama" Dignity Centre for the rehabilitation of violence and torture victims. It had the same objective.

In 2011, he started implementing his idea along with a group of lady doctors who had been released. They had weekly sessions that continued for 10 weeks. "I was the only man among them, was the only released from the men medics. I said to them: You needed those sessions for yourselves first and for your husbands who are behind the bars and will get out and they will be in dire need to your strength." Nabeel ponders that those sessions did not do much. They did not get the deserved response from the lady doctors. The culture of group sessions is still novel to our society, the idea still under progress. Some of them took the idea and establish their own organisation that had the same objective. Nabeel did not care. Realising the objective what mattered to him.

In 2012 Nabeel established "Rehab" committee for psychological support within the Bahrain Society for Human Rights committees. It was not an independent organisation. Twelve young social workers and psychologists volunteered to work with him. This committee continues its mission quietly and away from the spotlights. It organises visits every Saturday from 10 untill 12 in the morning to see the detainees' families in the various villages and reasons. It organises private sessions for the victims and treats the cases that need psychological rehabilitation.

Nabeel's ordeal remained confined to his box. It was so, because it coincided with other traumas, which made it more complex. I said to him once: "Write it down to release its clout on you. Writing will open your inside which in turn will release you!" He promised. But its violence was more powerful which postponed the writing.

Last December (2012), Nabeel decided to write and he did, however, he was unable to charge into his ordeal details. He remained sitting at its perimeter. He was plagued by confusion. The box was hard to open. When he was done with the writing he did not feel the elation of victory. Instead, he lived the back lash of the box. It was necessary to sit with Nabeel and disturb the tightly closed box as much as possible.

We could say that since 2009 Nabeel has been in a journey to garner victories against all that was cancerous. Everything that invades you or proliferates into you is cancerous that should be removed without any fear or hesitation. Cancer will have different manifestations in Nabeel's life, nonetheless, their essence is the same, their grip is the same, and their proliferation is the same. The challenge of their removal is the same.

In 2009 Nabeel Tammam was in Gaza to resist the cancerous Zionist invasion, he returned after Gaza emerged victorious. In 2010 he had to start embattling the lymphoma, he returned after defeating it morally. In 2011 he came across another cancer that he still lives and adamant to conquer whatever it takes of suffering. Surrender is not an option. 

Nabeel recalls: "Before the first attack on the Roundabout on 17 February, I daily went there. I took a number of devices, equipment and medicines from my private clinic to the Roundabout. I lost them all on that day. After the second return to the Roundabout I was not regular in going there, because of my appointments of my fourth chemotherapy dose in March. I was forced to retire to home."

"On 16 March I was in the hospital. I lived the siege around the hospital by tanks and weapons. I stayed there with the others for 4 days, I was the head of the ENT department. I slept in the office of the head of the department in Ward 66. I showered in the patients' bathroom in Ward 65. I was only able to leave the hospital on the fifth day after I made sure that all the medical staff I was responsible for had left. I saw the brutal and barbaric arrest of Dr. Ali Al-Ekri from the operations theatre. Once I arrived home, I contacted Al-Wasat daily, I expressed my protest against the military attack on the hospital, and in protest, I resigned as a head of department from the Ministry of Health. I phoned the Australian Radio and explained to them our detention in the hospital. I got ready for my arrest."

Nabeel continues: "In the morning of 11 April 2011 I was in the Arabian Gulf University delivering a theoretical

 lesson for the sixth year medical students.I worked there as part-time assistant professor. I got a call from the CEO of Salmaniya Medical Complex asking me to attend an administrative meeting at 12 noon. I was present on time. There were 4 consultants: Dr. Aaref Rajab, Dr. Shaheed Fadhl, Dr. Nabeel Hameed and Dr. Zahra Al-Sammak. The CEO came and denied he had called for a meeting. We expected arrest. It didn't take long. About 10-12 armed plain-clothed men came. We knew that they were from an Intelligence Agency. They took our phones and transported us to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) without any arrest warrant. That's why I considered it as abduction from a public building and a medical sanctuary and in front of the hospital CEO and others of the administration and other staff."

"In the CID building in Adliya region, torture was continuous sessions. I felt my skull shake among their hands and my brain scatter. I was surprised by a sudden blow on my right kidney. I writhed in pain and they indulged more in beating me. I was asked to confess that the medical staff smuggled fire weapons into the operations theatre and that we widened martyr Abdulredha Buhmaid's wound and killed him. My response was: you did that to him. I paid dearly for that reply of torture, beating, insults and kicks to every part of my body."

"You can’t understand the meaning of gaining pleasure of torturing others if you didn't see that for yourself in the torture chambers. They enjoyed insulting and torturing us. Every one of them tried to show the others he was more skilled in humiliating. The competition was fierce. Everyone was an achiever in the mission of humiliation. Everyone was a winner in the most brutal torture. As we were doctors, they were keen in degrading us. A torturer who hadn't finished high school would insult you of a language you hadn't heard of in your life. He would force you to copy animals’ sounds or their walk, or sing the royal anthem while keeping on beating you. All of that while you feel incredulous that was happening to you, you the one who spent your life as a source of pride to your country, your family, your people and yourself. You the one who only knew how to allow people to live their life In a better way and to be psychologically safer. Today you are not yourself!"

In May, Nabeel was waiting for his fifth chemotherapy dose, that would be two weeks after his arrest. He said to his torturers: "I have acute low level of white blood cells, my immunity is low it's of level 2. Any inflammation I suffer may kill me. If I die you bear the responsibility." They would reply to him: "You get an inflammation! That's what we want, we hope you die here, you traitor safavid, son of Mutaa [Shia temporary marriage]…"

Mubarak Ben Hwail would interrogate him and Nabeel said to him: "It's necessary they take me to Tumours Centre to take my chemotherapy dose!" Ben Hwail would reply: "There's no dose! We're going to let you die here!"

His eyes were blindfolded. He could not see his torturer's face. "Did you see that body thrown in the rubbish in Sar region? We killed him and threw him there, we'll do the same thing to you!" The torturer meant Martyr Sayed Hameed Mahfoodh's body that was missed for two days. Then found dumped beside his car near to Sar petrol pump. It was on 6 April 2011, a few days before Nabeel's arrest. Before that Martyr Hani Abdulaziz' body was found in a building under construction in Bild Al-Qadeem region on 24 March. He was left to bleed to death after he had been shot by bird shotgun pellets. At the time lust of killing was at its peak, it was about to be a custom had not the international community stopped it.

Nabeel got so exhausted and was taken to the Fortress Clinic. Blood specimens were taken. ECG of his heart showed irregular blood pressure. "They infused my veins with glucose and sat there for three hours. They were my best time during detention. I could sit down and go to the toilets. They took me again to detention where everyone was standing up and blindfolded. I returned to that place that smelt of nasty camphor. We weren't allowed to talk at the risk of punches."

In the dark detention, his body was tired of torture. Nabeel raised his head and looked up in his blindfolded eyes. Nothing he could see except blackness and unrestrained revenge, everything was moving towards a horrible unknown. "Will it be the end?" Nabeel was about to collapse. He quickly mustered his composure, shook off those melancholic thoughts. He could see a little face smiling at him. He looked carefully. It was his young son Iram's (9 years). Nabeel recalls how much it cost to bear his son Iram. It was not easy. "We only had Hisahm, we tried several pregnancies that didn't get through. Boys were aborted and girls died. We tried an artificial insemination that resulted in pregnancy of twin girl and boy. But after 26 weeks of pregnancy the doctor told us that the girl had died. Dr. Feryal Duasi (immigrated to Britain because of the security situation) through a surgery saved Iram of death. I owe her. So we named him Iram, despite it's a girl's name. He was too small and placed in the incubator for a month and a half. I sat with him every day for hours before and after my working hours. That night inside the detention I saw Iram's image and smiled, I said to myself: I stood beside Iram in his ordeal, and he will stand with me in my plight and will strengthen me, Iram won't let me down, his image had a big role in my steadfastness and prevented me from collapse."

At that time, the regime got itself in an awkward situation in front of the world. Two victims died in detention under torture. Zakariya Al-Sheeri died on 9 April and Abdulkareem Fakhrawi died on 11 April. It was difficult to get a third victim. Nabeel's case might have led to death at any time. They released him to avoid another scandal. He was relased on 13 April for a bail of BD 3000 (about $8,000). "It was the first time I knew that having a malignant illness like cancer could be a rescue from a more dangerous and more difficult ordeal which was death under torture."

So Nabeel did not stay for long in detention. "It was only three days that I lived in torture cells. They were enough to hurt me more than the malignant lymph nodes had done. I defeated the lymph nodes but the torture cells are still besieging me." Nabeel who was known for his stable and quiet personality left detention confused. That is how he described himself. He added: "Severe and continuous beating on my head affected my memory. Unconsciously, I got aggressive in the first days of my release. I think it's enough to know that my wife and I divorced one week after I'd left detention. There had been earlier incidents that contributed to it; nonetheless my situation when I left detention was the breaker."

"Immediately, after my release I began to experience bouts of psychological collapse, however, every time I pondered it in order to get to a positive thinking zone. One of my collapse cases, my feeling of betrayal. I was the only man from the medics case who was released. The others were all ladies. I felt so ridden of guilt. I stayed up a whole night struggling with myself to get out of that negative and frustrating thinking. At dawn I got a glimpse of a glimmer of light: Allah made me ill to leave detention, and made me leave detention to work for my colleagues who are still inside. One has to be outside to work for the others. That is my mission that fate has destined me to. Betrayal is to get busy away from that role and not to do my best. That idea was enough to make me get out of my collapse state to an absolutely different state. I knew what I had to do and since then I haven't deviated from it."

The rehabilitation sessions that Nabeel started with the released lady doctors (some of them were wives of detained doctors) was part of that responsibility that Nabeel took upon himself. When lady doctor who was a wife of a detained doctor visited him in his private clinic that he resumed his work in during summer 2011 and said worriedly: "Nabeel, what could we do to our husbands when they get released?" He felt even more responsible!

Despite Nabeel made himself busy being active for the medics case, nevertheless, that did not release him from the

 grip of the box inside him nor from the repercussions of the ordeal. The tape that was laden with pictures and memories shook him from inside and still he was not able to overcome it easily. "A couple of days before my arrest, I was woken up in the dawn by an outside movement. I went immediately to look through the window. I saw 5 police jeeps attacking a neighbouring house. I stayed unmoved for the horrible scene that we were not used to. I didn't notice 5 armed men were standing below my window. That scene still haunts me. Although I left the house and live now in a flat in Sar region, but most of the nights I still wake up at the same time, to look through the window. I fell into bouts of weeping. Don't be surprised, that how the backlash of a bad experience on the human being."

Opening the box…

It was not easy for Nabeel to reveal all of that. He knew well talking was part of self-rehabilitation, though that knowledge was resisted by that box. In my last interview with him before writing this experience some questions remained open. He squeezed himself to respond. I saw the answers in his eyes that swelled with tears but could not be shed, so I would change the questions. But the ever Nabeel, he decided to confront to win. That was how he learnt and trained himself. "The one who defeated cancer won't be defeated by that nasty box. It's a matter of time only. I've been already successful in making some holes in my box. I won't stop until smashing it completely." 

Nabeel adds: "After my release, I was not able to pass by the notorious CID building. Just passing by that place made me recall all the painful pictures and I would live a miserable state. I remained months before I was able to face that. I started driving my car to that building. I would park it in a place looking it in the face and would remain focusing my sight on it for a long time. It wasn't easy. I suffered. However, finally, I defeated it. I took me around 6 months to only overcome the place complex."

Now, Nabeel attends courses in meditation for regain his tranquility. He meditates and reads many positive thinking books. He steadfastly believes that he will defeat all those detention effects even if takes more time. He works relentlessly with his team of volunteers in his committee Rehab (to rehabilitate victims of violence and torture). He is active too in his colleagues' plight who are still spending unjust sentences in prison. "I will work for them, even if I stayed alone. I wouldn't blame anyone if they didn't do their best. I will continue to work for the plight that I believe in, and that's enough."

Footnotes