Health concerns grow for unjustly, illegally detained Bahrain Activists on Hunger Stike

Concerns grow over Bahraini activists health
19 March, 2013 – PressTV

Concerns have been growing in Bahrain over the deteriorating health of prominent human right activists who remain on hunger strike in detention.

Zainab al-Khawaja began her hunger strike after Bahraini authorities banned her from meeting with her family members, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said.

On March 1, a Bahraini court sentenced Zainab al-Khawaja to three months in prison for “insulting and humiliating a public employee.”

She had been acquitted of all charges at an earlier ruling. But the court of appeals overturned her acquittal.

She was arrested by the Saudi-backed forces in a demonstration held in capital Manama on February 27.

Her father Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is also on hunger strike in protest to the decision which denies him his visitation rights.

The rights activist, the co-founder and former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, has been in prison since 2011. He is among eight Bahraini opposition figures sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in the ongoing revolution.

The Bahraini uprising began in mid-February 2011, when the people, inspired by the popular revolutions that toppled the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive demonstrations.

The Manama regime launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring states.

Dozens of people have been killed in the crackdown, and the security forces have arrested hundreds, including doctors and nurses accused of treating injured revolutionaries.

Bahrainis say they will continue holding demonstrations until their demand for the establishment of a democratically elected government is met. …source