Bahrain returning ambassador to Tehran while Regime Continues to hold Political Prisoners

Bahrain returns ambassador to Tehran
13 August, 2012 – Tehran Times

Bahrain said Sunday it reinstated its ambassador in Iran, more than a year after recalling the envoy over Tehran’s strong condemnation of Manama’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

“The ambassador of the kingdom to the Islamic Republic of Iran has returned to his work in Tehran,” announced Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa on his Twitter page, AFP reported.

Manama recalled its ambassador from Iran on March 15 last year.

Tehran retaliated by recalling its envoy from Manama.

Iranian officials had severely criticized the violent crackdown in Bahrain, and the dispatch of Saudi troops there to help confront pro-democracy protests.

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of anti-government protesters have been staging regular demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.

According to Amnesty International, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in the crackdown.

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Human rights groups and the families of protesters arrested during the crackdown say that most detainees have been physically and mentally abused and that the whereabouts of many of them remain unknown. …source