Jaffar al-Hasabi was tortured in Bahrain for distributing leaflets which called for democratic reforms and equal rights. Interview by Eva Sanchis

Before the Arab Spring reached Bahrain in February a crackdown on political activists was already underway in the small Gulf state, ruled by the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty. It was 10 p.m. on a hot August night during Ramadan last year when security officials arrested Jaffar al-Hasabi at Bahrain International Airport as he returned from a holiday with his family.

The 39-year-old father of five said he was jailed and tortured for six months, during which time he was beaten, kept suspended, deprived of sleep, given electric shocks and forced to sign a confession. He was accused of terrorism and plotting to overthrow the government, charges that he denies and that could have resulted in a death sentence.

Al-Hasabi was among 23 Bahraini activists arrested in a clampdown ahead of parliamentary elections last year. That was not the first time he had been detained by the Bahraini government. In 1995 he applied for asylum in the UK after he was tortured in Bahrain for distributing leaflets which called for democratic reforms and equal rights for the Shia Muslim majority to which he belongs.

Since then, the computer technician and minicab driver has been living in London with his family, and after 2005 started to visit Bahrain again occasionally.  He became a British national in 2009.

Al-Hasabi and other detainees were finally released under royal pardons at the height of the uprising on February 23rd, following calls from protesters for their release. The other detainees also said that they had been tortured, charges that the government denied. Shortly after his release Al-Hasabi returned to the UK, but most of the others were detained again in the crackdown that followed the protests. When I recently met Al-Hasabi, who is now receiving assistance from REDRESS, the NGO I work for which helps survivors of torture, he said he is still experiencing pain in his back and that he feels weak most of the time. During the interview he talked about how he came to Britain, his latest detention and the uprising in Bahrain.

Why did you apply for asylum in 1995? I was working as a computer technician in Bahrain and through my small business we had been distributing leaflets, just collecting speeches from different people that called for democratic reforms and a constitution. I was arrested and tortured severely. When I was released the authorities followed me for more than three months. One morning I heard that my friends had been rounded up. I fled the country that afternoon.

Why were you arrested again in August of last year? After my father died in 2005 I started going to Bahrain again to see my family. I never had any difficulties until on August 16, when I came back from a visit to Iran with my mother and two daughters, I was arrested by security forces at the airport. They took my passport, my mobile, my watch, everything; they blindfolded and handcuffed me and took me to a prison called The Fort in Manama, where I was interrogated and tortured for nearly 40 days. They accused me of being a terrorist and getting money from a foreign country to plot against the government. They wanted me to confess to something I hadn’t done, so they tortured me and kept asking me the same questions. Then they moved me to another prison outside Manama, where the worst of the torture stopped, but I still had to beg to go to the toilet and I could not sleep because the guards would bang on the cell to wake me up.

What was the most terrifying moment during your detention?

The isolation, the beatings, and the fear every day that I was going to die… When you are blindfolded all the time, and you can’t see, and you are inside a small cell in the basement, it’s scary.

Why were you released? What happened after that?

Because the government came under pressure from the UK and because the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and Egypt and then happened in Bahrain and after that in Yemen and Libya… The pressure was so great they couldn’t resist it. People were protesting on the streets. If they had kept us in jail for any longer it would have backfired on them. But when they cracked down on the revolution on March 15th they came to look for us. I had already left the country, but they took most of the other activists and now they are in jail. Two or three people are in hiding. Luckily I’m here, but I’m worried about them.

Do you think that they are being tortured?

Of course they are being tortured, and more severely. Four detainees died in recent months in jail. They can’t kill political figures, but they are being tortured severely. One of them can’t move his arms as a result of the electric shocks. Another, who is disabled, was forced to crawl to the toilet because they wouldn’t give him his crutches. Now they have been sentenced to life in prison. The government has called an international committee to investigate torture, but the crackdown on the street, the revenge by the regime against the people is severe. More than 33 people have been killed on the streets and more than 3,000 have been sacked from their jobs, so thousands of families are suffering. The government released 147 detainees a few days ago, but there are still more than one thousand people in jail. Everybody is scared, but people are continuing the uprising against the regime, because if they stop, they’ll never get reform.
What political reforms would you like to see in Bahrain?The people of Bahrain should write their own constitution, rule themselves and elect their government, because we have been living in a military or police state since independence from Britain 40 years ago. People are scared when they go in or out of the country. We want to end this police state. We want democracy and we want the people not to be scared any more.

Do you have hope that the situation in Bahrain will change?

It could change if the international community and the UN apply more pressure. It could also change if America and Britain stop their double standards. They are protecting the regime and the royal family because they are their friends. They don’t care about the people being killed or about the crackdown. My hope is that because the new generation is more educated and new technology makes people more aware these days of what is happening in these countries, hopefully one day we will see these killers and torturers facing the same fate as Hosni Mubarak, being tried and facing jail.


Founder and chair of the organisation Empowering People for Excellence. Elena Noel recently received the Civic Award from the Mayor of Southwark for Voluntary Work/helping people in the community. She tells The New Londoners about her work.

I run workshops on building better community relations, I also work individually with parents whose children are at risk of being excluded from school, and I also provide support and advocacy for individuals who are unable to enforce their rights. For example, I ran workshops with the Somali Community to improve their networking and also ran workshops on Cohesion, Belonging, Diversity and Conflict with six formers at Bacon’s College which helped them to get the Gold Award for Diversity from Ofsted.

Most of the new users get referred to me by word of mouth. I’ve got good links in the local community and with the police as I’ve worked in Southwark for over 11 years, previously as a mediator.I try to address social exclusion, children getting into gangs, parental/child relationship breakdown. We try to encourage everyone to have a positive dialogue. I love it when I work with groups and see positive change. I ran workshops on stop and search with the police force so that young people understood their rights and the police built better relations with the young people. I work with faith groups and it was great to see that on the night of the riots some of these groups were on the streets advising people and calming the situation. I’ve worked with women who were victims of domestic violence. In one case, I helped a woman and her child to be rehoused after she had been living for 3 months on the floor of a community centre. She was very scared and I went with her to the Domestic Violence Officer to get support.
She didn’t seek advice elsewhere du to lack of information mainly. People don’t know where to go and who to trust. Some, like this lady, have no family and friends to turn to.

I can’t say the recent riots have had an impact on my work. There are always tensions in Southwark – some are systems issues, others to do with race and social issues. Young black people struggle to see their place in the world. I like to work with them to give them new perspectives on their situation and how they can turn their lives around.

I am organising the first South London Apprenticeships Fair for 16-25 year olds on 25^th October 2011 in Liberty House, Cottage Green. We are encouraging employers, career advisers and young people to attend. The other key piece of work is a research project in to hate crimes inflicted on people with disabilities. Reporting of these crimes is very low but anecdotal conversations seem to indicate that there is a problem and that it is due to lack of awareness.

For further information go to:
www.southlondonapprenticeshipfair.co.uk

Ellen tell us about your background relating to migration, being born in and relocating back to the UK after living in various African countries.

Although I was born in the UK, my parents - my father worked for the Zambian High Commission in the UK - went back to Zambia soon after my birth so I grew up in Zambia. I only came back to the UK as an adult after I had obtained my first degree from the University of Zambia.

In your novel Patchwork, the protagonist as a child was envied by Zambian children for her father’s international travel and later for her life as a student abroad, yet as an adult returning to Africa she was scorned for the loss of her culture. In your experience, and in general, do you think migrating has overall positive effects in terms of identity and belonging?

Exposure to other cultures is always positive as it makes one understand and become more tolerant to other ways of life. For me, it has been very positive, perhaps because I came to the UK as an adult so my foundation as to who I am in terms of identity and belonging was already laid. For this reason I was able to integrate in the UK without losing who I am. If my parents had stayed on in the UK I think it would have been very hard for them to raise me as a Zambian, remember it was the 1960’s so the UK was not as multicultural as it is today.  

Having lived in multi-cultural countries like South Africa and the UK, do you view multiculturalism in a positive light or do you agree with the controversial statement “state multiculturalism has failed”?

As the world becomes more global, multiculturalism now exists in most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Most of these cities have not gone up in flames or ceased to exist, on the contrary they are becoming more and more multicultural. I think it is a positive thing as it enriches us as people when we live with and learn about other cultures.

With the recent riots across England escalating to community grievances i.e. English Defence League and the Black and Asian gang warfare, and reflecting on the history of Asians and Europeans living amongst Black Zambian’s, what do you suggest for a harmonious multi-cultural society?

It is up to individual families and communities to instil a sense of culture and identity in their children. This could be through ensuring the children learn the language, the customs, the food etc. of their culture. However, I believe that if one chooses to migrate one should be prepared to integrate, and also appreciate that by settling in another country they are accepting that they will inevitably assume some of the culture that exists in the place they have migrated to. It is this acceptance or acknowledgement that fosters a harmonious multi-cultural society.

With cuts to public services and as a mother and children’s story writer, how do you address ways to empower young people through literary programmes, particularly in the face of the issue of social exclusion of disenfranchised youth and declining literacy rates?

There is no way round it, to improve literacy rates and empower our youth, money and investment is needed. More literary programmes, not only for children, but for the many adults who have fallen through the cracks are essential. There is a need to invest in public services for well-equipped schools and public libraries. We need to encourage society to ‘value’ education and literacy and not just send children off to school to get them out of the house.

What writing tips can you recommend to young people with creative talent, and are you running or planning any programmes for targeted communities in the UK?

I would encourage young people to read a lot and to find the time and space to write. I think a lot of aspiring writers don’t get around to writing because they don’t make the time for it. So it is important to make time, ideally, on a daily basis to write something creative. Also, to keep a journal as it’s a good way to practise putting ones thoughts into words.

What can we expect from your future work, more children’s stories, adult novels or another genre?

I am working on a play and plan to start working on a book for young teens later this year.

Dickson Rwigamba is a 22 yr old man originally from Rwanda. He was only six years old when the genocide of 1994 led his family to flee the country. He reveals his story to Jamie Clark

9am. Charing Cross, London. The Connection at St Martin’s day centre for the homeless. Wet. Raining. Cold.  Like clockwork the heavy front doors creak open to greet a weary shuffle of worn out, homeless hostel seekers. The staff, no less weary and worn out though dedicated and professional to the last, then get down to the serious tasks of assessment and referral to the various in-house specialist teams. It’s an incongruous sight amidst the blurry backdrop of the Southern Counties finest as they stream out of Charing Cross Station and bustle by eyes down to take up their Soho and Covent Garden positions in Westminster’s working line up.

I'm here to meet Dickson Rwigamba, the subject of my article for The New Londoner.  He’s not hard to spot. Fixed up, looking sharp, the name’s Rwigamba, Dickson Rwigamba as an imaginary trilby lands effortlessly on the proverbial coat peg. Part 007, part Thierry Henry, the Va Va Voom in his presentation is there for all to see.  He’s granted me an hour’s interview before he dashes off to work in John Lewis just up the road in Oxford Circus. With cuff links gleaming, silver suit shining, it feels like a Forbes exclusive, though all similarities with square mile aristocracy end here.

Dickson is a 22 yr old man originally from Rwanda and was only six years old when the genocide of 1994 led his family to flee to neighbouring Uganda. Dickson’s mother came to the UK in ‘98 and after seven years of separation he eventually joined her in 2005. A sadly all too familiar pattern of irrevocable relationship breakdown then led Dickson and his brother to a three month period of ‘hidden homelessness’ sleeping in Hackney building stairwells as they struggled to comprehend how having managed to elude one of the twentieth century’s most horrific genocides, they could not make it work with mum. I’ve only an hour; to probe deeper would be an inappropriate intrusion though the incredulity and hurt remain etched on his brow. Dispassionately he looks at me and after pausing says, ‘people ask me why she did that, I just don’t know’, the fragmentation and upheaval of early family life surely takings its toll however. He escaped the streets after a friend told him of the New Horizon youth centre near Kings Cross who referred him to a Centrepoint hostel.  A period of a year and a half in three separate homeless hostels in Willesden, Camden and Swiss Cottage then followed until he finally secured a small bedsit with Paddington Churches Housing Association in Willesden. Two years after becoming homeless in the UK and a 19 year old Dickson finally achieves a degree of stability.  No queues jumped, no drugs taken, no crimes committed, no benefit fraud, no complaints.

On Dickson’s questioning as to the purpose of the article and the magazine, I explain it attempts to portray the realities of the lives of those migrants new to London. ‘But I’m not a new Londoner’, he exclaims, half in jest though half making a serious point about the rightful seat he feels he now occupies in the big smoke. In his eyes, he is a Londoner pure and simple. A new Londoner might be someone who arrived in the last few months perhaps, such is the natural ebb and flow of the capital’s populace.  In fact, are not our friends from the North chasing TV dreams and lines of coke in Soho as much deserving of the epithet ‘New Londoner’ as he? Economic migrants can come from Preston too.

Dickson currently works a thirty-hour week for John Lewis in Oxford Circus after completing a two-week work placement set up by The Connection at St Martin’s back in 2009 and having impressed with a canny ability to engage the customer. He’s not been on any benefit for 18 months now and his three years studying welding at the College of NW London forged more than anything a keen desire to graft and progress. When the opportunity at John Lewis came along he grabbed it with both hands. ‘I love my team, I love to work. I hate benefits, they get on my nerves, you don’t get enough money, they’re annoying. Better to be stressed at work than stressed on benefits….’ And with words like that Dickson could ironically be the darling of the Right whose natural political instinct might be to deny the contribution of those whose join us from overseas.  ‘I’ve had only one day off and been late only twice in a year and a half’, the colour draining inexorably from the anti immigration Red Tops with every inspiring word of defiance and self help.

I move onto his experiences in the UK and look to explore any damaging influence of the negative press from certain sections of UK society. Dickson talks only of the negativity of those who don’t help themselves, claims to have never been stopped by the police and with an arresting, though perhaps slightly naïve innocence asks, ‘Why would they stop me? I’ve done nothing wrong?’ It’s reassuring to know that on this occasion the authorities are getting it right.

So how come this optimism? This confidence? Of course it’s ultimately all down to Dickson himself, his take on life, his appreciation of what he has and what he has escaped, but he knows he’s met some good people along the way. He attends a local church on Saturdays and for practical, rather than religious reasons converted from Islam to Christianity whilst in Uganda. It’s the part that other well-known religion has played that stands out however. ‘I played for three separate Football teams at one point and I help train one of Connection’s teams too. It made me positive’, he adds proudly. The best team I ask? ‘The Connection of course!’, said as much out of loyalty than anything else, the ‘C’ word complete with definite article carrying extra weight and conveyed with extra meaning.  And Connected with this our London community Dickson truly is. Job done.

And so we finish with the inevitable questions about the future. Big house? Fast Car? Top job? Not so. ‘I want to get a UK passport, though I must pass the citizenship test first and save £1000 to pay for it’. I think of all our forebears arriving in London at some point in history from all corners of the globe and wonder if they’d have passed the Life In The UK test today. Dickson continues, ‘I also want to learn to swim, to ice skate and most of all to act!.’ Keeping it practical, simple, being realistic but with dreams still to pursue seems to be the way for Dickson and as we prepare to leave, the Connection press officer, Sophie, then poses the most important question of all? ‘But are you happy Dickson?’ ‘I’m getting there’, is his sanguine response. With an attitude like this, you wouldn’t bet against him.