Yaara Bou Melhem: On the edge of the capital, Manama, thousands gather for the funeral of a young man. Hani Jumah was 32 years old and the father of two children. . . . It’s a scene repeated over and over in Bahrain, where there are more and more killings, more and more funerals, as the nation is torn by protests and a brutal government crackdown.
Tirana Hassan, Human Rights Watch: So this is the building that Hani Jumah’s body was found in. He was pursued by riot police as they were conducting a sweep through the neighborhood. . . . Essentially they found him lying unconscious where he had been bleeding out for about two hours. . . . You can see from the nature of the blood here that there was an enormous amount of blood loss, and when we came, we found fragments of his kneecap — we also found one of his teeth.
Yaara Bou Melhem: Tirana Hassan says that Jumah wasn’t even taking part in the anti-government protests when he was attacked — he was simply caught up in a police sweep when he went outside his home after hearing calls for help.
Tirana Hassan: What we found here is different to a number of the other investigations we’ve done. This was the scene of something calculated and cruel and carried out by riot police.
Yaara Bou Melhem: Hani Jumah was then taken to Bahrain’s central hospital and stabilized, but doctors told Human Rights Watch that security officials came looking for him. They found him in a hospital bed and took him away.
Tirana Hassan: His body turned up approximately four days later and the family was just told to come and collect the body.
This video was released by Journeyman Pictures on 11 April 2011. The text above is an edited partial transcript of the video. Cf. “Bahrain: Investigate Shooting, Arrest of Man Caught Up in Police Sweep; Authorities Refusing to Reveal Whereabouts of Growing Roster of Detainees” (Human Rights Watch, 23 March 2011); “Bahrain: Suspicious Deaths in Custody” (Human Rights Watch, 13 April 2011).
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