{"id":6161,"date":"2012-02-21T09:08:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6161"},"modified":"2012-02-21T09:08:50","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:08:50","slug":"bahrain-human-rights-activist-zainab-al-khawaja-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=6161","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain Human Rights Activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, Released"},"content":{"rendered":"

Human Rights Activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, Released in Bahrain<\/strong>
\nBy Esther Tran – 21 February, 2012 – ibtimes<\/p>\n

Bahraini human rights activist, Zaynab al-Khawaja, 28, also known by her Twitter name as “Angry Arabiya,” was released from prison on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

She was arrested about a week ago in Bahrain’s capital Manama, while approaching the Pearl Roundabout in an unsuccessful attempt to “reoccupy” the demolished site to honor the first anniversary of Bahrain uprisings.<\/p>\n

Bahraini police charged her with leading an illegal large-scale protest.<\/p>\n

Other female prisoners were released last Thursday, but Khawaja was the last to be freed.<\/p>\n

Although she wasn’t mistreated during her detention, Khawaja claimed it was only because of the government’s fear of bad publicity, “not because they respect my rights,” she told BBC.<\/p>\n

Taking pre-emptive actions against the protests, security forces were deployed last Monday to prevent demonstrators from reaching the Pearl Roundabout.<\/p>\n

Over a hundred protesters began marching from the village of Sitra towards the capital’s site after attending the funeral of a young protester, Hussein al-Baqali, 19, who accidentally died lighting himself on fire while trying to burn tires.<\/p>\n

Police reportedly used water cannon and tear gas to disperse the oncoming marchers. In response, the young demonstrators attacked with petrol bombs and stones.<\/p>\n

“After the burial of Hussain al-Baqali in Jidhafs, groups of vandals rioted. Police legally dispersed them,” Bahrain’s Interior Ministry tweeted out, calling the protesters “vandals.”<\/p>\n

The protesters mostly belong to the Muslim Shia sect and claim they have suffered for too long at the hands of the Sunni royal family.(Bahrain actually has a majority Shia population, but has long complained of discriminatiion from the ruling Sunni elite).<\/p>\n

Inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, Bahraini Shias have been demanding democratic reforms for about a year now.<\/p>\n

Khawaja is the daughter of Bahrain’s most prominent human rights defender, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, 51. She has succeeded her father, who remains in prison, as one of the high-profile figures in the protest movement against Bahrain’s authoritarian regime and their alleged human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

Her last arrest in December caused a media uproar as pictures and videos of her being “disciplined” by a policewoman spread across the Internet. Khawaja had refused to leave a sit-in protest.<\/p>\n

“We are not going to give up. Whose determination is stronger — the people’s or the dictatorship? Only time will tell,” she told BBC reporters after her most recent release from detention. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Human Rights Activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, Released in Bahrain By Esther Tran – 21 February, 2012 – ibtimes Bahraini human rights activist, Zaynab al-Khawaja, 28, also known by her Twitter name as “Angry Arabiya,” was released from prison on Tuesday. She was arrested about a week ago in Bahrain’s capital Manama, while approaching the Pearl Roundabout 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":[1925],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161"}],"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=6161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6186,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6161\/revisions\/6186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}