Bahrain Arrests Leading HR Activist, Crackdown Continues

Local Editor

A leading Bahraini human rights activist was detained Friday while documenting police attacks on an anti-government rally, witnesses said.

Said Yousif, the deputy head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), was checking up on protesters injured by riot police in the village of Diraz when he was stopped and taken to a police station.
After being held at the station for about an hour, Yousif posted on Twitter that he had been released.

"He called my sister to go pick him up, but when she arrived, one of the police told her, 'Why are you here? I'm still deciding what to do with him,'" Maryam al-Khawaja, BCHR acting head told al-Akhbar Lebanese newspaper.
He will likely be taken to the public prosecution office Saturday morning where authorities will decide whether to release or charge him.
Meanwhile, the BCHR recently published a report that indicts the country's monarch for "the spread of the culture of impunity." It refered to the kingdom's brutal crackdown on opposition protests since a popular rising erupted in February 2011.

"He has been arrested quite a few times, but I'm worried they are going to make him pay this time because of the report," al-Khawaja, who lives in exile, said.
In parallel, a 12-year-old-boy was badly injured after being hit by a police tear gas canister during a separate demonstration on Friday.
He was taken to the hospital for treatment after initial hesitation from the family who feared arrest, witnesses on Twitter said.

Police commonly set up checkpoints outside hospitals to arrest injured protesters. Medics who treat the injured activists are also frequently arrested and charged.

The demonstrations come as international criticism mounts over a new ban on protests in Bahrain.
Spokesperson for UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said Bahrain should "abide fully by international human rights standards, including respect for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and association."
Bahrain's al-Khalifa royal family, which has maintained a tight grip over the country for more than a century, is a strategic US ally and hosts the US Fifth Fleet.

Source: al-Akhbar, Edited by moqawama.org