Call King Hamad
to stop killing in Bahrain!
I was protesting on the roof.
Stop execution in Bahrain!
And then I saw two people of the Bahraini Embassy.
Mr. Moosa!
One of them holding a piece of wood
came to me, and he beat me in my hand...
Move away from him. Get back in the embassy.
and also tried to throw me from the rooftop.
Someone is pushing him.
Help!
He’s screaming, “Help!”
They are beating him.
They will kill him.
They beat me hard.
He took my T-shirt and put it in the water of the rain.
They put it in my face.
I was thinking, “I’m going to be killed here.”
I feel when I go back to Bahrain,
they would kill me
because they tried to kill me in Bahraini Embassy.
When I return back to Bahrain, they will kill me.
[Exiled]
I’m Moosa Mohammed,
a Bahraini activist and photojournalist
living in exile in the UK.
On 26 July 2019,
we went to Bahraini Embassy
to protest on the roof of Bahraini Embassy
to stop the execution of Ali al-Arab and Ahmad al-Malali in Bahrain.
There are extensive laws against protesting in Bahrain.
Any gathering of more than five people is illegal without permission.
That was used to sentence a lot of protesters in 2011.
But then they can throw into the mix a new law,
which is that to criticize the king,
you can face a sentence of up to seven years.
There was an incident in 2017
when the regime applied the death sentence to three protesters.
The executions were carried out by sniper in secret
in the middle of the night,
and this sent shockwaves within the country.
So in 2019, there was a sense that there were only a few hours left
when these two young men in their mid 20s would be executed.
When I went there, I was having my banner,
and I think, “The prime minister of the UK, he can do something.”
Boris Johnson, he is a friend of the King Hamad.
He can call him immediately to stop that.
Ali al-Arab and Ahmad al-Malali.
Boris Johnson, call King Hamad
to stop killing in Bahrain.
I was protesting on the roof.
And then I saw a lot of police officers come down.
Mr. Moosa!
And then I saw two people of the Bahraini Embassy.
One of them holding a piece of wood
came to me, and he beat me in my hand.
And also tried to throw me from the rooftop.
Stop!
Move away from him!
Move away from him. Get back in the embassy.
Someone is pushing him.
They beat me hard.
They took my T-shirt and put it in water of the rain.
They put it in my face.
I was thinking, “I’m going to be killed here.”
Help!
He’s screaming, “Help!”
They are beating him.
I was shouting to the police.
And the police officers as well, they’re shouting to them,
“Leave him away.
Go inside the embassy or we will break the door.”
They will kill him!
And then the police officers, they take action to save my life,
and they break the door.
It’s the police! It’s the police!
They beat me harder, and one of them said, “You are in this Bahraini soil,
no one is going to be safe in here.”
When they beat me, they said, “We will kill you here.”
I feel I’m going to be a second Khashoggi in the UK.
Even in UK, not in Istanbul.
Stay there!
They torture me.
This is Bahraini soil.
They torture me here.
Stay there.
There we are.
They arrested me, and I told them, “They torture me here.
They torture me in Bahraini Embassy on the roof of Bahraini Embassy.”
I saw they don’t arrest them.
They arrested only me.
They leave torturer,
but me, as a human rights activist to stop the execution in Bahrain,
they arrested me.
The time is 23:32.
You are under arrest for trespassing on diplomatic premises,
the Criminal Law Act 1977.
What I see, it’s hard in my life to feel far away from your home,
far away from your country, far away from your family.
I born in Bahrain, in an island called Sitra.
I live nearby the sea.
As a kid, 14 years or ten years,
we went to the sea, fishing.
It was a really nice village and nice place to live in.
One day, I heard that my teacher was arrested in the middle of night.
I was so shocked, and have a lot of questions,
why they arrested him and who has arrested him?
Because he called for freedom to the parliament in Bahrain.
Toppling this regime is our right.
Bahrain has a long civic history of struggling for democracy.
It witnessed one of the largest-scale uprisings in 2011
as part of the so-called Arab Spring,
Bahrain is an absolute monarchy.
It’s been ruled by the Al Khalifa family for the last 250 years.
So when the new king arrived, he promised a new parliament.
But unfortunately, it was a toothless parliament.
It had no power over decision-making in the country.
This is the reason why people rose up in 2011,
was that actually we want an actual representative parliament.
Following on from that, we saw the Saudi army invade
and help prop up the ruling family.
I was 14 years old. We made a protest inside the school,
and then the police officers came, and then they started using tear gas
and rubber bullets.
We ran away because we were kids.
After that, in the middle of night, they came to my home.
About 20 police officers,
they knocked the door, and they break the door,
comes inside the house.
They ask my father, “Where is Moosa?”
When I arrested, they beat me.
They tortured me.
They charge me to change the regime in Bahrain.
When they released me after three days,
they break the doors, and they came to arrested me.
I was arrested about seven times.
Similar charges,
but some of them, it’s missing.
There’s no charge.
The longest time I was in prison was two years, and it was so hard.
They start to...
sexual with me
just because they don’t want me to continue my activism.
And they said, “If you continue,
we will go to your wife and to your family as well.”
One day, chasing me, and they arrested me,
and I was thinking to come to the UK.
I saw a lot of Bahraini activists here when I came to here.
I start active as well, and I follow who is following me
and tortured me in Bahrain.
Down, down Hamad!
The king himself invite UAE troops and Saudi Arabia as well
to come to kill the people in Bahrain.
Neighboring allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular,
offer critical financial aid to the ruling family.
What Moosa does very well is his persistence and determination
in tracking down the movements of these officials
in Western capital cities
to try and bring the accountability that they do not have back home.
This is one of the killers of Jamal Khashoggi.
Ahmad al-Asiri, he is a killer, and he tortured Jamal Khashoggi.
Jamal Khashoggi, a very well known dissident journalist,
he was killed and dismembered in the Saudi Embassy
in Istanbul in 2018.
When I saw him, I shout to my friend, “Ahmad al-Asiri’s here.
He’s coming. He’s coming.”
And Sam Walton, he put his hand as a citizen arrest.
Sir, I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest.
I’m placing-- You’re assaulting me.
You’re interrupting a citizen’s arrest.
And they throw eggs on him.
I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest
for war crimes in Yemen.
As you see here,
He feel so bad, and as you see his middle finger.
They don’t have a control here.
We have our freedom.
We have space to say something on them.
And they’re scared.
What I work on and my colleagues work on to change the regime.
In Bahrain, they made many cases against the Bahraini activists.
But if you believe in something, you have to do it.
Every day when we wake up,
we feel we have to go back to Bahrain,
and we work hard to do something to our country.
Bahrain is our country,
not Al Khalifa country,
and Sitra and Al Ekar, our village.
And we will be back there sooner or later.
What I learn from the life, if you continue and show you are stronger,
the torturer himself, he's afraid.
[The Bahraini Embassy has called Moosa’s allegations]
[“completely unfounded” and “ridiculous”.]
[In a statement, it wrote, “The individual trespassed on to the roof]
[of the embassy in support of known members of terrorist organizations]
[recognized in the United Kingdom.]
[The individual was threatening to jump off the roof,]
[and embassy staff stepped in to restrain him for his own safety]
[until the police had arrived.”
[Moosa was convicted of trespassing,]
[and there was no known investigations of the embassy staff.]
[Ahmad al-Asiri is a defendant in an ongoing trial in Turkey]
[on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.]
[He was cleared in a Saudi trial.]