24th October 2012

BAHRAIN MEDIA ROUNDUP

Two hurt as Bahrain police clash with protesters
Bahraini police and antigovernment protesters clashed in a Shiite village outside the capital Manama overnight leaving at least two people wounded, the police said on Wednesday. Protesters attacked police with Molotov cocktails and iron rods on Tuesday night, according to a police statement carried by Bahrain's ofcial BNA news agency. At least "two suspects" were injured. The police said they were searching for "other suspects who participated in the attack." Witnesses meanwhile said police used tear gas and birdshot to disperse demonstrators who had gathered in Bani Jamra, just outside the capital, to protest a government siege of the Shiite village of Akar. Read More Morocco, some constitutional reform. Yet, in the shadow of the escalating civil war in Syria, it is monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan that are on the cusp of the regions convoluted transition from autocracy to more open political systems. To be sure, the situations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan differ substantially from one another. Read More by the United Nations and multiple human rights organisations.

Bahrain acquits ofcer on charges of torturing a journalist

CPJ is alarmed by a Bahraini court's acquittal of a police ofcer accused of torturing a journalist in custody in 2011. A criminal court in Manama on Monday acquitted police ofcer Sara al-Moussa on charges of torturing Nazeeha Saeed, a reporter for France24 and Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya, while the journalist was in custody in May 2011, according to the ofcial Bahrain News Agency (BNA). The agency reported

that the court ruled that Saeed's testimony was full of "contradictions" and not "consistent." Saeed told CPJ that she and her lawyer are urging prosecutors to reopen the case. Police arrested Saeed while she was covering antigovernment protests in the capital on May 22, 2011, according to news reports. Saeed told CPJ that during her 13-hour detention, alMoussa and the other ofcers blindfolded her, beat her repeatedly with a hose, pulled her hair, slapped her in the face, dunked her head in a toilet, kicked her, and forced her to sign papers she was not allowed to read. Read More Dheeb was sentenced to ve years in prison while Jalila al-Salman - who was not present in the courtroom was handed a six-month sentence when an appeal court upheld guilty verdicts against them. While the ruling reduced their sentences from ten years and three years imprisonment respectively, family members immediately expressed their dismay, calling the ruling a nightmare. Their lawyers have said they will appeal the decision before Bahrains Court of Cassation. Read More

Revolt In The Middle East: Arab Monarchies Next? Analysis

Arab monarchs pride themselves on having so far largely managed widespread discontent in their countries with a combination of nancial handouts, articial job creation, social investment and in the cases of Jordan and

Bahraini teachers face further jail time after 'nightmare' verdict

All these teachers did was to call for a strike in their role as trade union leaders Philip Luther Amnesty International has denounced a decision to uphold prison sentences against two former leaders of the Bahrain Teachers Association.

Detention of medics in Bahrain

I wish to congratulate Prof Damien McCormack (October 19th) for his courageous comments on the situation in Bahrain. As he correctly states, Irish-trained doctors have been illegally detained, tortured and convicted of the crime of treating injured antigovernment protesters. Although media attention has drifted away from Bahrain, these colleagues remain under sentence and their treatment has been roundly condemned

Regrettably, as Prof McCormack also points out, a number of Irish medical institutions have disgraced themselves in their reaction to these events. Truly, it beggars On Sunday 21 October belief that representatives of Mahdi Issa Mahdi Abu the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland paid social visits to the leaders of the brutal Bahraini regime in the same week that their own graduates had their convictions upheld by a kangaroo court. Read More

Met boss faces 'humiliating' legal battle with Yates of Yard after 'email slur' sent to highranking gures
Britain's most senior policeman is facing the humiliating prospect of having to pay libel damages to one of Scotland Yards former top ofcers. Met chief Bernard HoganHowe emailed a strongly worded memo mentioning ex-

counter terrorism chief John Yates to inuential gures in the Home Ofce and Foreign Ofce. Hundreds of the Mets senior and middle-ranking ofcers also received the memo in April this year. Mr Yates, who resigned as Assistant Commissioner in July last year in the wake of the hacking scandal, was said to have hit the roof when he heard what had been written about him. Read More to stage a massive anti-regime protest rally in Manama on Friday to show their wrath and condemnation of the severalday-long siege of the al-Akr town by the al-Khalifa army and security forces. Read More

materials used to make bombs.

Bahrain says it uncovered weapons cache inside unlicensed mosque

Police in Bahrain said on Wednesday they uncovered a weapons cache inside an unlicensed mosque where locally-made bombs were being produced. Authorities said they seized electric detonators, stopwatches and other

The cache was uncovered in the area of Abou Baham, a scene of violence attributed by ofcial media to Shiite hardliners. On Sunday authorities detained seven men over the killing of a policeman, as demonstrators tried to break through police checkpoints around the village where he lost his life. Read More Saudi-backed Bahraini forces have attacked antiregime protesters attempting to enter a besieged village in the east of the country. Read More

Bahrainis to Stage Massive Anti-Regime Protest Rally in Manama Frid

Bahraini activists invited people throughout the country

Police attack antiregime protesters near eastern Bahrain village