Bahrain Mirror: Human rights activist Ebtisam Al-Sayegh reported the complaints of a number of political prisoners in some of Jaw Central Prison's buildings due to the continuous water outage that has lasted for five days.

She said that as a result, the prisoners' demanded providing water from other buildings, even if it was a slow flow to meet their needs. She added that the police also refused to let the prisoners leave to fill the water themselves and move it to water-deprived buildings when needed.

She also stated that prisoners who knocked on the doors to protest against the lack of water had been subjected to punitive measures such as denial of contact with family, transfer to solitary confinement or charges of incitement of rioting.

Al-Sayegh called on the prison administration to follow the complaints of prisoners and make a radical solution to the problem of water cuts in the prison.

Al-Sayegh also reported on her account on Instagram the demands of a number of prisoners to move towards improve their humanitarian conditions. They reported in phone calls that control over their rights had become dependent on the mood of whoever is on their shift from the prison administration not reliant on any law.

"The right to treatment as an example requires a lot of attention, observation and accountability, as the prisoner awaits for months to be transferred to the modest medical clinic in prison," she said, adding that even those who receive it are only given painkillers. "The prisoner has to also wait a long time to be transferred to the hospital to see a specialist." She also said that treatment or dispensing of medication could stop for whatever reason.

Al-Sayegh pointed out that "the sick prisoner often does not get any diagnosis since the prison authorities consider him a fraud, not a patient," considering it as negligence towards the prisoner‘s right to guarantee treatment.

"The law has no place in hell," said Al-Sayegh, referring to Jaw Central Prison. "The situation is worsening and the people with genetic illnesses (like diabetes, blood pressure and heart diseases) are the first victims, as they lose weight and need health care," she said.

Arabic Version