Manama (Bahrain), July 15 (ANI): A young Bahraini woman poet has said she was beaten, electrocuted and threatened with sexual assault while in custody in Bahrain.
Ayat al-Qurmezi, 20, was arrested after reciting an anti-government poem to demonstrators earlier this year.
Qurmezi became one of the symbols of the protests that hit the centre of the Bahraini capital, Manama in February and March. After she was arrested, reports circulated that she had been whipped and even at one point raped and killed, leading to an improvement in her conditions and her release on Wednesday evening, The Telegraph reports.
Upon her release, Qurmezi was greeted by a crowd of hundreds of people at her home. She confirmed that she had not been sexually assaulted but was threatened and electrocuted with clips attached to her face.
Qurmezi, a member of the Shia majority was at teacher training college when the protests began in February. She was filmed reciting poems to a huge crowd at Pearl Roundabout, the epicentre of the demonstrations.
"She was beaten with a hose and electrocuted. They put the clips on her lips and on other parts of her face," Qurmezi's brother, Yusuf, was quoted, as saying by the paper.
"They did not rape her but they told her they would. They put her in a narrow cell. Through the wall she could hear the screams of men who were being beaten. They would come and tell her, 'you are next'," he added.
Qurmezi said she remained under house arrest. "I hope Bahrain can move away from the crisis to a transition into a better future, without discrimination or sectarianism," she said.(ANI)
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