The roundup of health workers who treated injured protesters set the tone for the furious and uncompromising reaction by Bahrain’s government to a popular uprising in 2011.

The authorities arrested doctors, nurses and others on charges ranging from violating medical neutrality to plotting to overthrow the government. Some of the health workers said they were tortured in prison, drawing outrage from medical groups around the world.

The arrests were part of a broader crackdown that started with the uprising, fueled by calls by the Shiite majority for greater political rights from the Sunni monarchy. Though the health workers were eventually released, after trials that lasted for months, their arrests were a measure of the deep schism in Bahrain’s society that has troubled the tiny island nation now for years.