“I was beaten up by royalty” says Bahraini poet

Summary from The Independent, July 18, 2011

A poet jailed for reciting her work at a protest says she was beaten up by a member of the Bahraini royal family.

Ayat al-Gormezi, aged 20, says she was regularly beaten about the head while in prison.

She described her attacker to the guards who said it was a female member of the country’s royal family who had volunteered for duty.

“She would say, ‘You should be proud of the al-Khalifas. They are not going to leave this country. It is their country,’ ” said Gormezi.

She became a symbol for the pro-democracy movement after reading out one of her poems at a rally in February  (see WVoN story).  She spent nine days in prison and was regularly tortured.