Keiran Dalton of the NSWNMA will be speaking this Saturday at a public meeting that was also to have been addressed by Bahraini surgeon Dr Ghassan Dhaif. Dr Dhaif has been denied entry to Australia by the federal Government, despite the fact that federal MPs condemned the ongoing crackdown on Bahrain’s mass protest movement in a Parliamentary debate only a week ago.
The public meeting, however, will still go ahead and here Keiran provides some background information.
In 2013, Bahraini nurses are still in gaol for tending wounded protesters in the Arab Spring demonstrations in Bahrain in February 2011.
These nurses are: Secretary-General of the Bahraini Nursing Society, Ibrahim al Demistani, Nurse Assistant, Haleema Al Sabagh, and Emergency Department Nurse, Hassan Matooq.
In March 2011, Bahraini security forces stormed Salmaniya Hospital, where many of the wounded of the ‘Arab Spring’ were being treated. Ninety-five healthworkers were arrested, tortured and incarcerated. International efforts have secured the release of many but seven remain in gaol, including until recently Dr Dhaif .
ED nurse Hassan Matooq.
