{"id":13861,"date":"2012-11-06T16:19:02","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T23:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=13861"},"modified":"2012-11-06T16:19:02","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T23:19:02","slug":"banned-protests-and-intensifed-police-abuse-with-illegal-arrests-violent-police-assualts-on-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=13861","title":{"rendered":"Banned Protests and intensifed Police Abuse with Illegal Arrests, Violent Police Assualts on Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahrain\u2019s Relentless Crackdown Continues<\/strong>
\n5 November, 2012 – Human Rights First<\/p>\n

Washington, DC \u2013 Human Rights First remains seriously concerned about the detention of Bahraini human rights defender Said Yousif al-Muhafdah, who was arrested on November 2 in the wake of a new policy banning public gatherings across the kingdom.<\/p>\n

Al-Muhafdah, the acting vice president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), was reportedly arrested and detained as he tried to assist a 12-year-old boy who had sustained a head injury from a tear gas canister that police fired at protesters in the town of Bilad al-Qadeem. He was detained just days before explosions in the kingdom killed two men. Human Rights First notes that the explosions should be promptly investigated and that those responsible for the incidents should be held accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBahrain continues to target leading human rights activists like Said Yousif and to suppress peaceful dissent. Reform seems an increasingly distant prospect,\u201d said Human Rights First\u2019s Brian Dooley. \u201cDespite those challenges, violence \u2013 from the Bahraini government or those seeking reform \u2013 is not the solution to Bahrain\u2019s problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not the first time al-Muhafdah has been detained by police. The human rights defender was also arrested on August 15 for speaking out against the Bahraini government. In this most recent arrest, the Public Prosecutions office declared that they would detain Al-Muhafdah for a week on charges of \u201cillegal gathering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clashes between police and a minority of protestors are increasing. Human Rights First is concerned that al-Muhafdah\u2019s detention is part of a systematic policy of targeting and arresting prominent civil society representatives in an attempt to intimidate human rights defenders from speaking out. For example, Nabeel Rajab is currently serving a three-year sentence for his \u201cinvolvement in illegal gatherings.\u201d In addition, Hussain M. Jawad, Chairman of the European-Bahraini Organization for Human Rights (EBOHR), has received a summons from the Public Prosecutions office to appear for questioning on November 11.<\/p>\n

Last week, in an attempt to further curtail freedoms, Bahraini authorities banned all public gatherings. In doing so, they cited \u201crepeated abuse\u201d of the right to freedom of speech. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon expressed his concern over these restrictions and said that they \u201ccould aggravate the situation in the country\u201d and urged the government of Bahrain to lift the ban \u201cwithout delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recent demonstrations came as a civil court sentenced three men on charges of insulting Bahrain\u2019s king in Twitter posts. Today two of these men received sentences of four months and one month in prison and last week another man received six months in prison. The fourth man is expected to be sentenced this month. …source<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahrain\u2019s Relentless Crackdown Continues 5 November, 2012 – Human Rights First Washington, DC \u2013 Human Rights First remains seriously concerned about the detention of Bahraini human rights defender Said Yousif al-Muhafdah, who was arrested on November 2 in the wake of a new policy banning public gatherings across the kingdom. Al-Muhafdah, the acting vice president more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3675],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13863,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13861\/revisions\/13863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}