Prisons in Bahrain

[3] During security crackdowns on political and human rights activists in August 2010, 76 children were reportedly arrested including a ten-year-old child.

The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said that the NSA was behind most of the arrests and "continuous physical assaults" on the children.

Authorities claimed that most of the children arrested were engaged in protests and protest-related activities such as tire burning.

Children were reportedly held in the same detention centers as adult prisoners being tried on criminal accusations such as illegal drug distribution.

[1]: 398 During the period between 1975 and 1999 known as the "State Security Law Era", torture was frequently used by the Bahraini government and resulted in the deaths of 17 individuals.

[9] However Royal Decree 56 of 2002 gave effective immunity to all those accused of torture during the 1990s uprising and before (including notorious figures such as Ian Henderson[10] and Adel Flaifel.[11]).

According to the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report, physical and psychological abuses were inflicted by the NSA and the MoI on a systematic basis and in many cases amounted to torture.

Forcing detainees to urinate on themselves as a result of deprivation of toilets was most common in Al Adliya (CID) and Asri prisons.

Abdulaziz bin Mubarak, the Bahrain Information Authority's Director of Media Relations, told ABC News that reported incidents were taken very seriously and investigated, and that any torture that took place was unsanctioned, noting that five prison guards had been arrested for one death.