Bahrain Jails Photojournalist, Detains Rights Activist Maryam Al-Khawaja
Local Editor
Bahrain upheld a 10-year jail term for a photojournalist on Sunday and detained human rights activist Maryam al-Khawaja, as part of an ongoing crackdown over a 2011 uprising in the kingdom.
Bahrain's appeals court decided to uphold a jail term handed down to award-winning photojournalist Ahmad Humaidan, despite appeals by rights group for his release.
Rights watchdogs say Humaidan was merely covering the pro-democracy protests that erupted among several protesters in the kingdom.
"Throwing photographers in jail isn't going to keep either the protests or the accounts of what happens in Bahrain out of the world's sight," Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch said in June.
Humaidan was put on trial in February along with 29 others.
Authorities, meanwhile, have arrested Maryam al-Khawaja after she flew into Bahrain to visit her jailed father, leading activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, his lawyer said.
A prominent human rights activist Maryam Al-Khawaja was arrested shortly after arriving in Bahrain to check on her father, who is hunger-striking in prison along with thousands of sentenced activists, a key opposition figure Nabeel Rajab said.
The public prosecution denied Maryam the right to meet with her lawyer before interrogation and during the questioning wasn't allowed to talk to her about her legal rights.
Maryam al-Khawaja is co-director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, which has offices in Copenhagen and Beirut, and she had been hoping to visit him in jail when she was arrested and "stripped of her Bahraini nationality," lawyer Mohammad al-Jishi said.
Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, jailed for life, staged a 110-day hunger strike in 2012 in protest against his imprisonment and is now on hunger strike again, lawyer Mohammad al-Jishi said.
Since the start of his hunger strike, a doctor has seen Khawaja "17 times" in five days, the interior ministry's Ombudsman Office said in a statement reported by official BNA news agency.
BNA also said Khawaja sent a letter to the prison authorities saying that "he would go on a hunger strike until he is released."
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International call Khawaja, a "prisoner of conscience." He is among seven defendants who have been handed down lengthy jail sentences for their role in the 2011 protests.Maryam, like her father, also holds Danish citizenship.
Moreover, authorities finally granted Maryam a visa but accused her of "attacking policewomen" at the airport and ordered her to be held for seven days pending an investigation, Jishi said.
Persistent protests are still ongoing and dozens face trial over their role in the uprising, while authorities have also increased penalties for those convicted of offenses.
Bahrain has launched a heavy-handed crackdown on anti-regime protesters since the uprising against the ruling Al-Khalifa broke out across the Persian Gulf kingdom in February 2011. Troops from Saudi Arabia have been deployed to Bahrain to assist in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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