Mirror Bahrain (Exclusive): Only five minutes were enough to narrate everything; the entire Bahraini story, and all the heartbreak lived by Bahrainis.

They were only a few minutes that the families of third and fourth degree detainees were given to meet their beloved ones, on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. And here was the surprise.

Cousins who were raised together and spent their childhood together before one of them was arrested, were astonished to see how their relatives had grown up so suddenly.

It is the first time they see each other in years. They were imprisoned when they were children, and today, everything about them changed so suddenly. They became taller, their voices became coarser, and they suddenly grew a mustache and beard. The detainee and his cousin would look at each other in astonishment and say: Oh God! You are not the same child I used to play with years ago.

One of them said, "I could not believe my eyes when I saw my cousin, he is my best friend and we were never apart before he was arrested. He was imprisoned 4 years ago when he was 17 years old, when he was in year 2 of secondary school. He was then sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. Today (Al-Adha Eid), when I saw him, we kept staring at one another, as if we cannot believe what we're seeing. We kept on saying to one another: You have changed a lot. My communication with my cousin did not end after his arrest; he always contacted me from inside prison. However, when I saw him today, it was shocking. We did not have more than 5 minutes for us all to see him, and gather around him with our years-long eagerness that kept us apart. I do not know who was more surprised about seeing the other: he or we. The meeting was painful, and despite the short time we had, we felt that we said everything and even heard everything. The looks we exchanged were enough, and I felt my cousin was flying of joy for seeing us."

A short while ago, a recent photo taken for child Ibrahim al-Moqdad (born in 1997), showing him in handcuffs walking next to a police officer to the Salmaniya Hospital, triggered reactions by concerned Bahrainis. People were shocked by the photo of the child who was arrested at 15 years of age and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment, and by how he suddenly grew up. He became taller and his looks completely changed. He is no longer the child Ibrahim, whose picture remained in the minds of the people years ago, condemning his arrest as the youngest political prisoner. He suddenly became a young skinny man, and people could not believe it. He went from childhood to manhood in prison. People could not tolerate seeing him walking with chained cuffs in his hands and around his feet like some dangerous criminal, while he is supposed to be holding college books like all the youth of his age.

These are not only painful scenes, but they are evidence of the vile crime practiced by the Bahraini regime against childhood. How do these Bahrainis enter jail as children, and leave when they are men in their 20s and 30s? How are those in their childhood years held with those of teenage and adolescence inside prison? How do they deal with these sensitive and dangerous stages that need special care?

How would the lives of these [prisoners] be lost in the darkness of prison instead of investing them in building and development? Why would they let their igniting energies die? Why would they [the prisoners] graduate [from prison] with a certificate of hatred against the regime, instead of graduating from their schools and universities with pride?

It is the most painful and heinous Bahraini tragedy...There is no value for children, youth, lives, humans, or the homeland. Nothing is of value. "To hell with everything, and long live the ruling family."

Arabic Version