BORMANN: The Arab world’s island nation is a ‘can do’ place for business. The sands here gushed with the first oil ever discovered in the Gulf. Now dusty cities of glass and steel sprout from the desert. This is the domain of the Royal family Khalifa and the King’s broader clan of 3,000 or so control government and a lot of the business. 
Pity anyone who stands in their path.

[In car in Bahrain] “If I were a businessman here life would be great. A free trade agreement with the United States, no capital gains tax, no stamp duty – I wouldn’t even have to pay income tax. But as a journalist, my stay will be difficult. Behind the façade, something dramatic and dreadful is happening”.

Business friendly Bahrain is under a curfew and martial law. Its citizens and the foreign workers, who make up half the population, endure a daily grind of checks and roadblocks. Then there’s the occupation by invitation – the three hundred tanks that crossed the causeway from Saudi Arabia. 

We need to film secretly from our car – to appear in the open with a camera would lead to our arrest. But just off the freeway, ‘open for business’ Bahrain becomes a closed and very different world. 

FARIDA GHULAM: It is modern and you see civilisation, you see technology everywhere but when you go to the villages, you will see the other face of Bahrain. You will see poverty. You will see neglected buildings. You will see neglected areas”.

BORMANN: It was in the mainly Shiite villages around the capital Manama where Bahrain’s spectacular but short-lived uprising was hatched. For decades the majority Shiite population had complained of discrimination, fewer senior jobs in the police, military and public service, while Sunni Muslims with Royal blessing had more opportunity.

ALI: “It actually started with social media. We agreed on a certain date. I mean, 14th of February is just a date that people agreed to go out and ask for their rights and reform”.

BORMANN: In the past six weeks, young men like Ali have messaged, tweeted and uploaded their way through Bahrain’s opposition revolt. He’s now as wanted as anyone on the barricades. 

ALI: The easiest way will be technology. You’d use Skype, you’d use Blackberry, you’d use any form of secure line, any form of contact and that’s how you could do it. I mean you don’t have to see the person face to face”.

BORMANN: This is where Ali and his social media mobilisers led their people, to the iconic Pearl roundabout. At first their demands were modest, a more representative parliament and a clampdown on corruption. But their restraint was met with a heavy hand and the first protestors would die as the roundabout was cleared.

ALI: “We went out. They shot one of us. He was killed instantly. The second day, in his funeral proceedings they shot the second person. And it just started from there”.

BORMANN: It was Bahrain’s darkest hour, so said its Crown Prince.... but he told the protesters they could return to the roundabout and return they did.

ALI: “They’d finish work and go there, or they’d start their day from there. I mean we had kids, women, children, families, old people, young people – they knew that this was something that they had to do. It was a stand everybody was making”.

BORMANN: But embittered by the deaths of its so-called martyrs, the crowd’s demands became more audacious. Many now wanted an overthrow of the Monarchy. Others wanted to drive them into the sea. As the demonstrators threatened to blockade Manama’s financial district, security forces moved in to disburse the crowd and dismantle a tent city that had been the epicentre of the protests for a month.

FARIDA GHULAM: “I am thankful that these young people do use their videos and cameras you know to say, to convey the truth about what is happening in Bahrain. Whenever the killing starts, they start filming quickly and they upload the videos within an hour or so, so you can see the real situation”. 

BORMANN: The uprising organised through social media was being conveyed and documented to the world through new technology. An information war had begun.

ALI: “You can see how courageous he is. Alone. Here I am. You want me? I’m not hiding. I’m not going. Shoot me. It’s very clear. And I mean, he expects to be shot. 
It’s just inspiring. It just shows what people are willing to do. I’m actually very proud of all the people that we have here”. 

BORMANN: The only local television here is Bahrain’s national broadcaster. Its loyal presenters had their own take on events. Anchor Ahdeya Ahmed says she’s conveying the truth and context missing from international coverage of the uprising. 

AHDEYA AHMED: [On television] “We will bring you witness reports of how police were kidnapped, brutally treated, attacked and tortured on the hands of so-called peaceful protestors. Well they weren’t protestors, they were criminals and terrorists who terrorised these policemen”. 

[to Trevor] “I don’t believe that unarmed protestors were shot by snipers. I believe that some videos could be fabricated. I’m a Bahraini. I’ve lived all my life here. I have not seen any violence. Some people sincerely believe that the moment they die on the hands of a policeman they are martyrs who are promised virgins in heaven and by being so brainwashed I can visualise, I can imagine that some people actually wanted to die on that day”.

BORMANN: What followed was a government media blitz to counter the opposition’s YouTube frenzy. Documentaries showing knife wielding and ferocious demonstrators.... the stockpile of Molotov cocktails in the tent city at the round-a-about. A grainy video even claimed to show a demonstrator putting on makeup to fake an injury. Then there was this video, purporting to show demonstrators running over one of several policemen killed in the clashes. 

AHDEYA AHMED: “The agenda was not a peaceful gathering from day one. Maybe there were people who believed this was going to be peaceful, but the leaders had other plans. Now policemen were driven over Trevor, we have films of a policeman who had his fingers cut because he was driven over. Why would you attack a policeman? A policeman says leave this place, you simply leave it”. 

BORMANN: We’ve been told it’s forbidden to film any security presence on these streets. It’s hard to avoid. We’re on our way to what should be a refuge in Bahrain, a safe and helpful place for anyone sick or injured, regardless of the cause but the scale of the security at Salmaniya Hospital indicates something’s not right. Armoured vehicles cover every entrance and it seems some unremarkable parts of the hospital are no go zones.

SECURITY: “Excuse me, sir. I told you don’t take anything… Excuse me, sir… this is the second warning. Now, your camera’s on still. This is the second warning. I’m so sorry to say this for you. Put it off”. 

BORMANN: Inside masked and heavily armed soldiers roam the corridors. They have tight control of a place that became a central feature of the power struggle here. 

They were nights of utter chaos as the injured arrived with supporters and family in tow, medical staff could barely cope with the sheer number of casualties. One doctor it seems revealed a little too much. 

DR BASSEM DEIF: “Definitely live ammunition because the femur, the bone, is completely shattered”.

BORMANN: For his candid diagnosis – exposing the government’s use of live rounds – orthopaedic surgeon Bassem Deif was arrested – his family have not heard of him since. Six other doctors are in prison for apparently sympathising with protesters. The government claimed the hospital had become a hot bed of dissent and the doctors abused and even refused to treat injured police. 

AHDEYA AHMED: “A doctor who tells a poor man you will not be treated here, you have walked into this place alive but you will leave dead, should be sitting in his house? He should not just lose his license, he should be severely punished and he should get what he deserves. I think more people should be arrested”.

BORMANN: “At the hospital?”

AHDEYA AHMED: “Yes, yes”. 

BORMANN: I’d been told by opposition activists that there’d been a military takeover of the hospital and that injured protestors were being held prisoner. I’d also seen a video claimed to show a nurse being beaten by police as their purge continued. And another of a Sunni gang attacking nurses. 

[In hospital corridor] “The government says we’ve been grossly misinformed about what’s been happening in this hospital in the last few weeks so they’ve agreed to let us in to see for ourselves. They’ve told us we can speak to doctors, to staff, to patients, really anyone about the events of the last few weeks”. 

But I was allowed only into two wards to see patients who weren’t caught in the clashes. A Health Department official told me all was calm again.

“Bahrain security forces are looking for people inside this hospital?”

DR FAWZI ABDULLA AMIN: “I have no idea if they are. They could be looking in the whole country”.

BORMANN: “So doctor what’s happened to those doctors who supported the opposition movement?”

DR FAWZI ABDULLA AMIN: “Some of them are working, some of them I think maybe interrogated by security for what they’ve done”.

FARIDA GHULAM: “So basically they have cleansed the Salmaniya Hospital of any, of any person who has any passion or any connection with the previous you know movement for freedom.

BORMANN: Farida Ghulam is one of few opposition figures prepared to show her face for our camera. She’s Sunni and from a wealthy family, not the usual background of an agitator. Critics of the Bahrain Royal Family are now being arrested one by one. It’s the middle of the night when the police come calling.

FARIDA GHULAM: “Altogether there were forty five, they were all masked. When you look at them from upstairs you feel like it’s a bunch of thugs.... ”.

BORMANN: Her husband, opposition leader Ibrahim Sherif was lead away to prison. There’s been one telephone call of just a few seconds. At least she knows he’s alive.

FARIDA GHULAM: “It was very tense. They were screaming all the time, trying to paralyse you, not answering you. It was.... I think they were deliberately doing that to scare you and not give you the chance to think or act properly”.

BORMANN: The protest movement broken and dispersed, the Bahraini Royal family is now obliterating all of its opponents once and for all. In Shiite villages, internal security forces sweep through night and day, terrorising and taking men away to an uncertain fate. 

They linger for no apparent reason but to menace and destroy property at random. Neighbours who cower in fear can still manage to record the event to feed to the outside world. 
This village leader asked us to obscure his identity and change his voice. 

VILLAGE LEADER: “If they want to get some specific people, they come at night - say three… four o’clock - and then they know that people are in their houses and they attack their houses with a big group. And then they walk around and around the whole area and whenever they capture anybody they just knock him down, hit him badly with their shoes and their hands and then they try to steal their money”.

BORMANN: The security forces have free reign here. They target and intimidate mainly the young men of the village. Anyone identified in our story is very likely to be jailed but filming this man’s back was enough to tell his story. He’d been hit with a shotgun blast. It’s a painful and disfiguring wound.

MAN (Describing incident): He was sitting opposite my home... he was sitting outside... and they have... a policeman came and he shot him. He was just sitting outside at home. That’s it.

BORMANN: I was ushered to a house to meet other young men. They too had been shot in the back. It’s dangerous to be seen in a group anywhere in this neighbourhood. The injuries should have been treated in hospital but they know that’s where they can be found. 

Jaffa Adam doesn’t mind if we show his face. He says the police know it anyway. He’s one of the walking wounded. During a demonstration, a soldier’s bullets passed right through his hip, incredibly missing the bone, but the doctors advised him to leave the hospital before the police arrived. 

The security forces sweep through hospitals every day he told me. They arrest demonstrators who are patients and take them away to military hospitals or prison. Outside his friends guard him. They’re all on the run and never spend more than two days in the one place. Their only crime they say is having turned up at the roundabout to protest. 

ALI: They’re using every single means possible to kill us, target us and stop us from speaking but I mean, are you going to kill the whole people?”

BORMANN: There was another salvo in the information war. Authorities released this video purporting to show protestors rounding up foreign workers. The Bahraini security forces have large numbers of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis drafted into the police and army. The government claims protestors have been storming communities of foreigners to kidnap and beat suspected police and soldiers. 

AHDEYA AHMED: “They keep on saying that when they were attacked the protesters were telling them, who is the policeman among you? If you tell us who the policeman is we will not touch you”.

BORMANN: In the last day or so I’ve been approached by several people discreetly telling me of a purge that’s happening in private companies here. Lists have been drawn up and anyone even suspected of involvement in the opposition movement is sacked. In one telecommunications company, eighty staff were shed all for what they apparently believed in. 

FARIDA GHULAM: “Everybody’s terrorised in his workplace..... when it will be my turn? Many of them..... their salaries were cut off. They were not given their salaries. And they are summoned to investigations. So this is what’s going on and everybody is waiting for his turn”.

BORMANN (on telephone): Look, it’s our last day here and as you know, we still don’t have a minister lined up....

BORMANN: During my time in Bahrain I made persistent approaches through government media minders to interview officials on camera. 

[On telephone] Since I’ve been here I’ve made bids for the Crown Prince and the Foreign Minister, the Justice Minister, the Culture Minister and Prince Nasser and you won’t give me anyone. It’s a problem. 

AHDEYA AHMED: In the end Ahdeya Ahmed gave me her government’s perspective. I was told everyone at Bahrain TV was an official anyway.

AHDEYA AHMED: “I’m a loyalist. Yes I’m proud to be a loyalist. I believe in my system, Trevor. We want reform, we want a better standard of living, we want better opportunities, we want better homes.... but we want our system”.

ALI: “You’re with the ruling family or you’re against it. To them it’s about them keeping their chair, keeping their monarchy, keeping their place. They’re controlling every single aspect of life. And basically what they’re saying is, you breath because I let you breath”.

BORMANN: These people are relatively well off but when it comes to rights and opportunities this is still a land of haves and have nots. Bahrain and its big Sunni brother Saudi Arabia don’t fancy the idea of allowing Shiites too much of a foot hold – not with Iran just across the Gulf. And that other great ally, the United States, has its fifth fleet based here. So while the Americans have been front and centre protecting opponents of the Libyan regime, there’ll be no bail out for the rebels of Bahrain. Swept off the street and banished, they’ll just move underground to prepare for yet another day in the sun.