Bahrain opposition rallies for hunger striker

Bahrain opposition rallies for hunger striker
6 April, 2012 – (AFP)

DUBAI — Hundreds of people demonstrated in Bahrain on Friday for the release of a jailed activist who has been on hunger strike for almost two months.

Two demonstrations — in Jidhafs district of Manama and in the village of Aali — uged the release of rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, witnesses told AFP.

The protesters carried pictures of Khawaja alongside Bahraini flags and chanted his name.

Bahrain’s largest opposition movement Al-Wefaq warned that the activist’s life was now in danger and urged the international community to intervene and press for his release.

Khawaja, who was condemned with other opposition activists to life in jail over an alleged plot to topple the Sunni monarchy during a month-long protest a year ago, began his hunger strike on the night of February 8-9.

Late on Thursday, Al-Wefaq said his daughter Zainab al-Khawaja was arrested after she protested outside the interior ministry’s hospital where her father was being held to urge his release.

“In a phone call to her husband, Zainab announced starting a hunger strike in solidarity with her father,” said the Shiite opposition grouping.

A police statement on state news agency BNA said she was arrested for having “attacked a public employee who was doing his duty” and who “repeatedly informed her she was not allowed to stand at the entrance” to the ministry.

Front Line Defenders, a Dublin-based non-governmental organisation, warned Tuesday after a visit to Manama that Khawaja, who it said has shed 25 percent of his body weight, could die in jail as he is “at risk of organ failure.” …more