Said Yousif al-Muhafdah, jailed for being a witness to crimes by the regime

Bahrain Jails Activist for Covering Protests on Twitter
By LIAM STACK and ROBERT MACKEY – 19 Decemebr, 2012 – NYT The Lede

Bahrain jailed a leading rights activist for posts on Twitter documenting a protest on Monday in the capital, Manama, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said in a statement.

The activist, Said Yousif al-Muhafdah, is the center’s head of documentation and the second member of the group to be jailed for using the social network in the past six months. A photograph of Mr. Muhafdah’s arrest was later posted on Twitter.

In July, Bahrain sentenced Nabeel Rajab, the rights center’s president, to three months in prison for joking on Twitter that supporters of Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Sulman al-Khalifa, who was appointed to his post in 1971, cheered him only after being bribed.

Mr. Muhafdah was arrested for reporting on Monday’s protest as it came under attack from Bahrain’s security forces. A look at his @SAIDYOUSIF Twitter feed shows that he covered the protest in detail, transmitting photos of protesters engulfed in tear gas and displaying gory injuries from shotgun pellets to his 77,000 followers. …source