Ali Abdulemamis a blogger who has been imprisoned in Bahrain since September 4th. A hearing in the joint trial of Abdulemam and 24 other dissident bloggers on terrorism charges is scheduled for December 23rd. They will be defended by court-appointed lawyers, because their own lawyers resigned en masse on December 9th in protest of the court’s refusal to suspend the trial while their torture allegations are investigated.
Many governments persecute and jail dissident bloggers, the governments of Iran, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, Belarus, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, and Egypt terrorize dissident bloggers. Blogging in Greece is considered on of the worlds most dangerous jobs. Beurocrats accuse dissident bloggers of treason, confiscate their computers, and lock them is jail. These prisoners of of the state follow the long tradition of Socrates, who was killed by the Athenians for not conforming to the government model of a good, subservient citizen.
Cybercops break into the homes of bloggers, robbing their computers, software, files, documents, personal data, personal codes, and personal secrets. They lock the bloggers in jail, they humiliate them with handcuffs, fingerprints, photos, and lies, leak false information to the media, and initiate sham court proceedings for treason under perjury conditions. There are no toilet facilities in their jail cells. At night, they have to urinate in small bottles. There is neither toilet paper nor soap. They lose their jobs, and their lives are stolen forever.
Bahrain dissident bloggers’ call for a suspension to their sham of a trial was based on article 186 of Bahrain’s criminal code, which states that when defendants claim they have been tortured, the trial must be suspended while the allegations are investigated.
Jenan Al Oraibi, the wife of Ali Abdulemamis, says her husband is a writer, journalist and blogger: Ali does not belong to any political party. He just writes his opinion. Ali has a free pen. That is exactly his crime. He has a free pen. His last blog entry before his arrest was to call for support for those who had already been arrested. The last thing he wrote was for those prisoners, defending them, and now he is one of them. They are all good people who have good jobs in this society. They are all innocent.
As regards the torture of the defendants by cybercops, the cybercops warned them that “if you speak of any mistreatment, any torture, we will torture you even more.” She adds: But they are really brave, they are heroes, they decided to stand up and say exactly what happened to them.
She was supposed to be able to visit her husband every Wednesday, but the frequency and duration of the visits has been reduced. They are not allowed to talk about politics, what has been happening on the street or in the newspapers, even if there is nothing about them in the newspapers because the subject is banned in Bahrain. Since her husband’s arrest, she has had to look after their three young children alone and feels constantly under threat.
