About Justice for Bahrain:
Justice for Bahrain in an independent body set up in London by a group of professionals, academics and students following the invasion of Bahrain by the GCC forces on March 14, 2011. Justice For Bahrain is not affiliated to any political organisation, sectarian denomination. Our aim is to raise awareness about the ongoing human rights abuses and violation taking place in Bahrain.
“What crime did my daughter commit to be in prison?”
Ayat's mother's plea to the world
Ayat Al-Gormezi, a 20 year old poet and student at the Faculty of Teachers, has been subjected to harassment, defamation, intimidation and threats of rape and murder.
On March 30th Ayat gave herself up to the police after they threatened to kill her brothers. She was taken away in a car with two security officials – a man and a woman – both of whom were masked and dressed in civilian clothes. They immediately started to beat her and threaten her, saying she would be raped and sexually assaulted with degrading photographs of her put on the internet.
"When she reached the interrogation centre in Manama she was put in the very small cell and kept there for nine days," her mother said. "The beatings with electric cable made her lips swell up." At times, Ayat thought the air conditioning in the cell was emitting some form of gas, which made her feel she was suffocating. Throughout this period the police made no real attempt to interrogate her.
The Military court in Bahrain sentenced her poet to one year in prison for reading out a poem criticizing the country’s King on the 12th of June 2011.
