MANAMA — A female member of the al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain has been accused of repeatedly beating the 20-year-old student poet Ayat al-Gormezi when she was in prison, accused of reciting a poem at a pro-democracy protest rally criticizing the monarchy.

In an interview with The Independent, Ms. Gormezi, who became a symbol of resistance to oppression in Bahrain, said that although her interrogators had tried to blindfold her, “I was able to see a woman of about 40 in civilian clothes who was beating me on the head with a baton.”  Ms. Gormezi later described her interrogator to prison guards, who, she said, promptly named the woman as being one of the al-Khalifas with a senior position in the Bahraini security service.

Gormezi was detained on 30 March at her parents’ house after spending two weeks in hiding when the government, backed by a Saudi-led force, started a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in mid-March. She had been targeted by the authorities after she read out a poem at a rally in February which contained the lines: “We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery. We are the people who will destroy injustice.”

Addressing King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa directly, she said of the Bahraini people: “Don’t you hear their cries? Don’t you hear their screams?” As she finished speaking the crowd roared: “Down with Hamad!”