An Al Jazeera investigation has found evidence that Bahrain's security forces are torturing medical workers to force criminal confessions.

Since pro-democracy protests erupted in the Gulf kingdom in February, doctors and nurses have been targeted, with hundreds facing arrest, Charles Stratford reports in this Al Jazeera exclusive.

The government of Bahrain deployed security forces onto the streets on March 14 in an attempt to quell more than four weeks of protests.

Medics working to save the lives of hundreds of wounded demonstrators were among those threatened and arrested.

"Obviously we remain very concerned about all these reports of human rights abuses there," Mark Toner, the US state department spokesman, said in response to the violations documented in Stratford's reports.