BAHRAIN’S SECURITY forces used excessive force to suppress protests earlier this year, an Bahraini government appointed inquiry reported yesterday.
The findings were welcomed by the United States as offering King Hamad and his people an opportunity jointly to find a way to “implement necessary reforms”.
An Oireachtas committee is to write to the Royal College of Surgeons to ask for its views on the testimony of two Irish-trained doctors, Dr Al Ekri and Dr Ghassan Dhaif, who say they were beaten, tortured, and forced into making confessions following protests. Their accounts appear on the website doctorsinchains.org
The committee is to also ask the RCSI whether it believes it is appropriate to maintain a substantial commercial relationship with the Bahraini regime in these circumstances and what efforts they have made to secure the release of all medical staff incarcerated for performing their duties.
The RCSI has invested €60 million in a medical school campus in Bahrain which has 900 students and 100 staff.