'Bahraini forces arrest teachers, pupils'

Mon Apr 18, 2011

Bahraini security forces have reportedly arrested several teachers and students in the town of Hamad in a new wave of crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

Reports say at least eight teachers and several pupils from an all-girl secondary school were arrested in the Bahraini city.

The new arrests came as Bahraini anti-government protesters are preparing to start the world's largest joint hunger strike to show their anger with the regime's crackdown on peaceful demonstrators.

The organizers have called on all Bahrainis around the world to begin a hunger strike from Monday in protest against the regime's brutalities against the opposition.

The move was inspired by rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja who was hospitalized on Sunday after seven days of hunger strike.

She is protesting the detention of several of her relatives, including her father and husband. The human rights activists were detained earlier this month by Bahraini security forces, backed by troops from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Sunday that Bahraini security forces have detained a lawyer known for defending opposition figures.

Mohammed al-Tajer was arrested at his home on Friday by "more than two dozen uniformed and plainclothes security officers, most of whom were masked," HRW said in a statement.

"Human Rights Watch believes that Tajer is the first defense lawyer detained in more than a decade. He is well-known for defending opposition figures and rights activists arrested in security sweeps," it said.

"The government's arrest of a leading defense lawyer shows that Bahrain is taking a turn for the worse on human rights," Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director, said in the statement.

"The authorities should either release Mohammed al-Tajer or charge him now with a recognizable offence," HRW said.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/175410.html.