Bahraini Forces Target Doctors and Patients
(CNN) -- Another human rights group on Friday accused Bahraini authorities of raiding hospitals, and torturing doctors and patients in an effort to quell protests.
Physicians for Human Rights joined the chorus of organizations that have charged Bahraini security officials with targeting doctors and patients.
"The excessive use of force against unarmed civilians, patients in hospitals and medical personnel that PHR's investigators documented is extremely troubling and is cause for an immediate international investigation," said Hans Hogrefe, a director with the organization.
Physicians for Human Rights, a group that shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to ban landmines, says it sent investigators to the gulf kingdom and interviewed 45 patients, doctors, nurses and witnesses.
The report details attacks on "physicians, medical staff, patients and unarmed civilians with the use of bird shot, physical beatings, rubber bullets, tear gas and unidentified chemical agents," the group says.
This report echoes similar reports released earlier this month by Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders.
Protests swept the strategically important island kingdom earlier this year as populations across the Arab world rose up against their rulers.
Bahrain, where the United States Navy's Fifth fleet anchors, is a small predominantly Shiite country governed by a Sunni royal family.
The country's crown prince defended the government's actions in a speech earlier this month.
"We were immensely concerned that some of our youth were pushed towards a destructive path and that the nation was drawn along with them," Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa said, according to an official transcript.
"We took necessary action to preserve lives and the livelihood and interests of all the people, based on our commitment to Islamic and Arab values," he said.
"The problem escalated beyond all limits. Freedoms were misused and overtaken by extremists and their agenda," he said.
The attacks documented in their report could breach international law which "dictates noninterference with medical services in times of civil unrest," Physicians for Human Rights said.
"Although every attack we documented is troubling, attacks on medical professionals are particularly disturbing because they also impact the five, 10 or 15 people that could have been helped or treated by that doctor, nurse, or medic," said Richard Sollom, deputy director of the group and author of the report.