DUBAI: Two Bahraini female activists were released from jail on Tuesday, but the two women refused to leave, saying they would not exit the jail until another woman imprisoned since September, was also set free..
Shiite blogger Zainab al-Khawaja, whose violent arrest went viral on global social networking sites, and Maasuma al-Sayed, were released pending trial on charges of “taking part in (illegal) assemblies on Budaiya highway and assaulting a female police officer,” BNA state news agency said.
The report said a case was being made to bring the two female activists to criminal court.According to Mohamed al-Maskati, the head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, the women will not leave prison until Fathia Abdali Hayat is released with them.Hayat was arrested in September and is accused by the government of giving shelter to protesters. The blogers found the woman inside the Issa Town police station.One of several video clips showing Khawaja’s arrest generated nearly 173,000 hits since Thursday.It showed the Shiite activist refusing to stand up and leave a roundabout following a sit-in that was dispersed by police.The footage showed her being handcuffed by a policewoman.Another female member of the security forces appears to grab Khawaja’s face violently, before both then dragged her to a police vehicle.One of the policewomen can be seen punching Khawaja in the chest as she lay on her back on the pavement.The mother of a one-year-old child and whose husband Wafi al-Majed is in prison along with her father, leading opponent Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, Zainab al-Khawaja is known on the social network Twitter as “Angry Arabiya.”
She tweeted from the roundabout before her arrest, saying she was chanting “Down, down (King) Hamad” and that a “few girls” have joined her while “riot police don’t seem to know what to do.”
Shiite youth groups had called for a series of consecutive protests on the highway which links Shiite villages with Manama’s former Pearl Square, the focal point of a month-long pro-democracy uprising that was crushed in March.Source BkiyaMasr.
Related - Bahrain Feature: Protests and Clashes Across the Kingdom Tonight.(EAWorldview).
More protests were reported from Bahrain today, mainly concentrated in several villages around the capital Manama and in Sitra, to the southeast. In almost all cases, protesters were suppressed by security forces.
Sitra:
In Sitra, several hundred protesters gathered tonight to demand the freedom of detained protesters and to call for the downfall of King Hamad bin Isa AlKhalifa. The protest, with the significant participation of women, carried banners and Bahraini flags. Eyewitnesses from the scene reported that protesters were chanting, "Peaceful, Peaceful" and "We want freedom"
When protesters approached the line of security forces, the police fired tear gas and other non-lethal weapons to disperse the crowds. The video shows the moment of a sudden attack :
Eyewitnesses described the scene in the area of the protest as "raining tear gas". Protesters tried to remain in the area, but were driven out by continuous firing of tear gas fire; they were forced to run and hide in homes. The police continued to pursue some of the demonstrators and indiscriminately fired tear gas at houses which they suspected were sheltering protesters. Read and see the full story here.
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