Around fifty doctors and medical students at the March seminar of the Medical Practitioners Union section of UNITE expressed support for imprisoned Bahraini medics and health workers. Holding up signs with the names of seven medics and health workers who were jailed and tortured during the crackdown which followed the 2011 uprising, they pledged their support for a campaign launched by MENA Solidarity Network and the Bahraini Australia Youth Movement to highlight the repression faced by their Bahraini colleagues.

BAYM is also working with the Australian Nurses Federation to mobilise solidarity from Australian healthworkers (go to http://anf.org.au/campaign/entry/bahrain-solidarity-campaign for more details).

Nurses Ibrahim al-Demistani, Hassan Matooq and Haleema al-Sabbagh, pharmacist Ahmed Ali Almushatat and doctors Ali Al-Ekri, Ghassan Dhai and Saeed Al Samahiji have been jailed because they treated injured protestors and documented abuses by the Bahraini security forces. Read their full stories online here

What you can do:

• Pass this resolution through your union branch
  • This union condemns the imprisonment of Ibrahim al Demistani, Hassan Matooq, Ahmed Ali Almushatat, Haleema Al Sabagh, Dr Ali Al-Ekri, Dr Ghassan Dhaif and Dr Saeed Al Samahiji, and resolves to write to the Bahraini authorities calling for their immediate release, and for the release of all other political prisoners in Bahrain.
  • This union further condemns the British government’s continued willingness to sell arms to Bahraini authorities despite the ongoing repression there. Since 14 February 2011, the British government has approved at least £16m of export licenses for military equipment to the Bahrain, including small arms ammunition, body armour and training hand grenades. We call on the British government to stop the export of military equipment to Bahrain.
  • This union resolves to circulate details of the campaign for the arrested medics to our members and encourages them to take part.
  • This union further resolves to send this resolution to our region / annual conference calling on the union to mobilise a national campaign to highlight the repression against healthworkers, other trade unionists and activists in Bahrain since 2011.

  

  Tower Hamlets branch of the British Medical Association holding signs with the names of their imprisoned Bahraini colleagues – February 2013

• Show your solidarity with the imprisoned medics by sending a message. You can email menasolidarity@gmail.com or print out one of the signs below and take a photograph of yourself and your colleagues so that we can post on Facebook (www.facebook.com/menasolidarity ) and Twitter (@menasolidarity) to show people in Bahrain support from healthworkers internationally for their struggle.

• Put up leaflets and posters about the campaign around your workplace. If possible, make links with colleagues in the same departments and wards where the arrested Bahraini medics worked. If you aren’t a healthworker yourself, why not take some leaflets and posters to your local hospital and ask to speak to union reps about the campaign? Download a leaflet version of this webpage here.

Signs to download and print out
Ibrahim al-Demistani
Hassan Matooq
Haleema al-Sabbagh
Ahmed Ali Almushatat
Dr Ali Al-Ekri
Dr Ghassan Dhaif
Dr Saeed Al Samahiji