http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/opinion/18kristof.html-snip-
King Hamad initially pulled the police back, but early on Thursday morning he sent in the riot police, who went in with guns blazing. Bahrain television has claimed that the protesters were armed with swords and threatening security – that’s preposterous. I was on the roundabout earlier that night and saw many thousands of people, including large numbers of women and children, even babies. Many were asleep.
I was not at the roundabout at the time of the attack, but afterward at the main hospital (one of at least three to receive casualties) I saw the effects. More than 600 people were treated with injuries, overwhelmingly men but including small numbers of women and children.
-snip-
Dr. Ekri, a distinguished plastic surgeon, had just returned from a trip to Houston. He identified himself as a physician to the riot police, according to other doctors and family members, based partly on what Dr. Ekri told them before he lost consciousness. But then, they said, the riot police handcuffed him and began beating him with sticks and kicking him, while shouting insults against Shiites. Finally, they pulled down his pants and threatened to rape him, although they abandoned that idea and eventually allowed an ambulance to rescue him.
-snip-
Three ambulance drivers or paramedics told me that they had been pulled out of their ambulances and beaten by the police. One, Jameel, whose head was bandaged and his arm was in a cast, told me that police had clubbed him and that a senior officer had then told him: “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
-snip-
That's Kristof's latest column. He's been tweeting about the protests and crackdown frequently, and this is what he tweeted an hour ago:
NickKristof Nicholas Kristof
#Bahrain royal family has started a campaign to have me fired for my reports from here.
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply
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