Search

Report

Lethal in Disguise 2

Executive summary Public protests have surged across the world in recent years, often led by grassroots movements seeking to challenge social and economic injustices, express discontent and demand transformative change from their governments. Economic inequity led to the 2018 “Yellow Vests” protests in France, and echoes of these protests were felt in the 2019 Chile protests, the […]

March 22, 2023

Bahrain

In early 2011, thousands of protesters in the small island kingdom of Bahrain took to the streets calling for government reform. The Bahraini government’s response was brutal and systematic: shoot civilian protesters, or detain and torture them – and erase all evidence. In 2012, PHR declared that the Bahrain government’s indiscriminate use of tear gas […]

August 5, 2018
Blog

Unbiased Health Care Stifled in Bahrain

The release of Ibrahim al-Demestani, a nurse imprisoned by Bahraini authorities, is the latest chapter in the government’s ongoing campaign against health professionals. While his release should be celebrated, al-Demestani should never have been imprisoned and forced to complete a three-year sentence in the first place. As protests against repressive governments swept across the Middle […]

April 30, 2015
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Will Bahrain Get Away with It Again?

As the Bahraini authorities continue to violate human rights and target rights defenders, the United States should leverage the re-admission of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski to Bahrain as an opportunity to ask the Bahraini government to fulfill their international human rights obligations. Earlier this week, human […]

December 3, 2014
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

The United States and Its Unafraid Ally, Bahrain

It is welcome news that human rights defender Maryam al-Khawaja was released from detention in Bahrain yesterday. She was arrested at the Bahrain International Airport on August 30, en route to see her ailing father, who is serving a life sentence in prison and is currently on a hunger strike. Despite her release, the charges […]

September 19, 2014
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Multimedia

Doctors in Bahrain: In Their Own Words

Medical workers in Bahrain have endured some of the most egregious violations of medical neutrality in the wake of popular unrest that began in early 2011. Physicians for Human Rights documented the unbridled attacks by the Bahraini security forces on the Bahraini medical institution, including arresting and detaining medical workers for providing care to protesters, […]

July 29, 2014
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers, Torture
Blog

Impunity and Lack of Transparency Fuel Assault on Medics in Bahrain

Three years ago today, Bahraini security forces entered Salmaniya Medical Complex – the largest public hospital in Bahrain. In a flagrant violation of the right to health, security forces interfered with medical services and refused entry to the injured and sick. Over the next few months, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) documented the government's systematic […]

March 16, 2014
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

On Three-Year Anniversary of Bahrain’s Protests, Medics Remain Imprisoned

In response to peaceful protests demanding greater political freedom and equality that started thee years ago today in Bahrain, the government responded with excessive force, using tear gas as a weapon and targeting activists and health professionals with torture and arbitrary detention. Despite a prominent investigation by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry into these […]

February 14, 2014
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Restricting Bahrain’s Access to Tear Gas

Earlier this week, South Korea agreed to halt the sale of tear gas to Bahrain following mounting pressure from the Stop the Shipment campaign and human rights organizations. South Korea’s refusal to supply the country with additional tear gas makes a strong statement of support for human rights and other countries should follow its example. […]

January 10, 2014
Attacks on Health Care, Mass Atrocities, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Medical Care Under Threat in 2013

This post originally appeared in The Huffington Post. In Bahrain, two nurses and a doctor remain imprisoned during the holidays simply for doing their job: treating the injured during the government crackdown. Türkiye is considering a bill that seeks to criminalize emergency medical care — the latest example of the government trying to intimidate doctors […]

December 30, 2013
Attacks on Health Care, Mass Atrocities, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Bahrain’s Continued Weaponizing of Tear Gas

In August 2012, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reported on the extensive, persistent, and disproportionate use of toxic chemical agents by anti-riot police against civilians in Bahrain. Police weaponized tear gas in order to crush protests, leading to at least 39 confirmed deaths since 2011 and causing long-term deleterious consequences for those repeatedly exposed to […]

October 25, 2013
Mass Atrocities
Blog

Violations of Medical Neutrality in Türkiye Are Reminiscent of Bahrain

Along with many of my medical colleagues, I have been appalled to read recent news accounts of Turkish doctors being arrested, questioned, and threatened with having their medical licenses revoked merely for treating protesters wounded in clashes with security forces in Istanbul. We have also been encouraged, however, to see the Turkish Medical Association’s (TMA’s) […]

June 24, 2013
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Ongoing Politicization of Medical Affairs in Bahrain Requires Vigorous Response

The cancellation of an international medical ethics conference that had been scheduled for April 10-12 in Bahrain is another sign that the country’s rulers continue a systematic pattern of politicizing medical affairs. The organizers, Médecins Sans Frontières and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland at the Medical University of Bahrain, said they were forced […]

May 3, 2013
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Stained Glass Transparency: Bahrain’s Latest Obfuscation of International Human Rights Accountability

Bahrain has again indefinitely postponed a visit by the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, the latest in a series of attempts to deter human rights observers from scrutinizing the kingdom’s dismal human records record. The government told the rapporteur, Juan Méndez, that his visit could be “immensely damaging” to the Bahrain National Dialogue, an initiative […]

April 25, 2013
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Capitol Hill Briefing Spotlights Bahrain’s Lack of Progress in Bolstering Human Rights

Nearly one year after the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry released a report recommending legal and policy changes to improve human rights in that country, the kingdom’s regime has failed to live up to its pledge to implement those changes, according to panelists at a Congressional briefing Wednesday. In some ways, in fact, the human […]

November 15, 2012
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Report

Weaponizing Tear Gas

Read the report (pdf)  The Bahrain government’s indiscriminate use of tear gas as a weapon has resulted in the maiming, blinding, and even killing of civilian protesters, and must stop at once while the government reassesses the use of such toxic chemical agents. PHR’s new report details the findings of our investigation. This report is […]

August 1, 2012
Chemical Weapons
Report

Under the Gun: Ongoing Assaults on Bahrain’s Health System

In February 2011, the Government of Bahrain began targeting health professionals who treated protesters. In April 2012, PHR’s Richard Sollom, Deputy Director, and Holly Atkinson, MD, FACP, past President of PHR’s Board and volunteer expert, authored a report showing the devastation on Bahrain’s health system that have resulted from the Government of Bahrain’s continued assault […]

May 1, 2012
Attacks on Health Care
Blog

Four Imprisoned Bahraini Medical Professionals Should be Released Immediately

Today at his appellate court trial in Bahrain, hospital administrator Younis Ashoori could have been freed from arbitrary detention. The trumped up charges against him could have been overturned, proving to Bahrain’s citizens and the world that the Bahraini government would not dare to uphold a three-year conviction handed down last June by military court. […]

April 25, 2012
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Bahraini Hunger Striker Force Fed? If So, It's Torture

On 9 April 2011, two hours after I left his family and flew home from Bahrain, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, a well-known human rights activist, was brutally beaten in his home and dragged away by security forces. A military court later sentenced him to life in prison for participating in last year’s Arab Spring demonstrations. For the […]

March 31, 2012
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers, Torture
Blog

Tear Gas or Lethal Gas? Bahrain’s Death Toll Mounts to 34

Bahraini anti-government protesters run for cover from tear gas during clashes with riot police near the headquarters of the main Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq, in Zinj Village, west of Manama, on December 23, 2011. (AFP/Getty Images)   Based on interviews with local physicians and analysis of news reports, the Government of Bahrain’s oppressive use of […]

March 16, 2012
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Proving Torture Allegations: Trouble with Bahraini Trial Continues

Twenty medical professionals in Bahrain continue to fightfor vindication from politically motivated charges against them. Last Thursday,Bahraini courts denied these medicalpersonnel yet another form of justice. These imprisoned doctors allege Bahraini authorities torturedthem in detention as a means to extract confessions from them. On Thursday,Bahraini courts acquiesced to public pressure and formed a three-membercommittee to […]

March 12, 2012
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Smoke and Mirrors in the Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain

Behind the dense clouds of tear gas that still blanket thestreets of Bahrain, the Government continues its attacks on Shia neighborhoods,opposition and civil society leaders, and medical personnel. Attempting to conceal its ongoing abuses, the Government employsPR firms towage a disinformation campaign, and it routinely obstructs international humanrights advocates from entering the Kingdom. Case in […]

March 2, 2012
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Blog

Bahraini Government’s Use of Tear Gas Claims Several Lives

Over the last month, the Bahraini police have been using tear gas almost every night against protesters in residential areas. Specifically, thepolice have been targeting the Shi’a neighborhoods of Iker, Sitra, Nuwadrat,and Ma’ameer. While there are international guidelines for the proper use oftear gas, victims of such attacks describe the police using tear gas inappropriately […]

January 27, 2012
Attacks on Health Care
Blog

Bogus Charges Against Bahraini Human Rights Activist Must Be Dropped

Last week, Bahraini authorities wrongfully detained humanrights activist Zainab al-Khawaja,while she engaged in nonviolent, peaceful protest against Bahraini governmentpolicies. As this video shows, Zainab was dragged away by law enforcement officers who, according to Amnesty Internationalallegedly beat her outside the view of cameras before taking her into custodyagainst her will. Zainab’s violent arrest shows that […]

December 22, 2011
Attacks on Health Care, Persecution of Health Workers
Multimedia

Doctors under fire amid 'Arab Spring' revolutions

As the revolutions collectively known as “the Arab Spring” have rocked the Middle East and North Africa, medical professionals have often been caught in the crossfire. PHR's Richard Sollom joins WHYY NPR in Philadelphia to discuss doctors under siege in the Arab world, and the pursuit of “medical neutrality” on Capitol Hill and in the […]

November 29, 2011
Persecution of Health Workers

Get Updates from PHR