Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): In one of his comments back in 2012, Bahraini TV director, Ahmad Yacoub Al-Muqla stated that Al-Wefaq Society prompted him to feel guilt-free about differentiating between a Shiite and a Sunni. Al-Muqla did not clarify through in his Twitter comments what it meant to be guilt-free in that sense or how he would act under this new circumstance. However, it is clear now what this immunity to liability he said he had gained at the time meant.

Director Al-Muqla volunteered to film the confessions made by the Shiite detainees and imprisoned leaders of Bahraini civil society. He did not sense any wrongdoing when witnessing the deputy head of Bahrain Teachers Society Jalila Salman sitting alone in the recording room, surrounded by thirty masked police officers. He did not feel any guilt either when he saw with his own eyes the extreme fatigue she suffered, following days of interrogation and brutal torture in the security force chambers.

As a TV director, all that Al-Muqla was concerned about was the soundness of his directing process, and the tortured victims memorizing the script they were given. "Abdul Hakim Mandi asks director Ahmad Yacoub Al-Muqla: Did she say everything? Al-Muqla would answer: No. And so they would reshoot me saying confessions [to actions] I never committed," Jalila Salman says in this regard.

He acted as if the scenes in front of him were merely from a TV drama show like the ones he worked on before for years, rather than being true woes of victims of flesh and blood.

These are the sufferings of real people, nothing is fake about their pains. Al-Muqla was devoted to one of the important directions directors usually instruct the actors to do: Always stick to the script. Al-Salman used to always deviate from the script. Al-Muqla always made sure that she stick to the text. "What I remember is this sentence from the list of confessions: We ruined education in the country, and we have relations with foreign parties," she said.

Al-Muqla found his way out and an excuse to free himself of "guilt". After saying that Al-Wefaq led him to become fault-free, he said in another comment addressing Al-Wefaq Secretary General Sheikh, "Ali Salman, we sense excessive confidence in your speeches. You talk as if one say you will rule the country. Dream on."

Al-Muqla used to take turns with his "hotshot" colleague and member of the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society, Faisal Foulaz, in torturing the Bahrain Teachers Society President, Mahdi Abu Deeb. Foulaz mocked Abu Deeb's clothes. Abu Deeb says: "He criticized my clothes as if I chose them from my own closet and not detained here".

It seems as if Al-Muqla had written his [Saadoun] drama series story to represent one of these victims whose calamities would begin 12 years after this show of his was aired: Mahdi Abu Deeb- with the same foreign troops with a heavy Arabic accent, same persecuted victims and for the same reasons; and most importantly, there's a camera filming as well! Yet the difference is that the people here and their sufferings are real, and the scars are deep, really deep.

Arabic Version