“Bahraini women are paying dearly for expressing their views.”

Women In The Arab Spring

By William Fisher
The Public Record
Jun 5th, 2011

Since the beginning of the Arab Spring – starting with the unrest in Tunisia in early January – questions have been raised about the role of women in the uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East.

Photography of demonstrations in Egypt’s Tahrir Square reveals the presence of women of all ages. The same appears to be true in other parts of Egypt, and in Tunisia, Syria, and Bahrain.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has cataloged the role of women in the demonstrations in that country and the often brutal actions taken by security forces to force them from the streets.

The Center says, “Bahraini women are paying dearly for expressing their views.”

The organization says that dozens of Bahraini women “are being detained in prison facing torture and humiliation for participating in peaceful protests. The government is killing, detaining, physically and verbally abusing and dismissing women from work and education.”

In a statement, the Center says it “strongly condemns the ongoing crackdown against the peaceful protesters in Bahrain, specially the repression and detention of a great number of Bahraini women such as political and social activists, doctors, teachers, housewives as well as school and university students. These women are facing torture as well as physical and verbal abuses that leads to death in some cases; in addition to the dismissal from work and education.”

The Center says it believes the3se actions are “a vengeance against Bahraini women for the key role they played since the beginning of the protests; a way to force them giving up that role and retreat any activity they had in the protesting movement since last February. It is also a way to add pressure on the opposition to retreat their legitimate demands.” …more