From Angry Arab's Bahrain correspondent: "I know I haven't written for a while, but this is urgent. The tiny village
of Al-Ekr has been under siege since Friday. I have no idea what's going on
inside. No one can go in. No one can go out. Goods can't come in. Goods can't
come out. Its absolutely ridiculous and what I'm hearing reminds me of what
happened in Bahrain in March 2011, except that no one is reporting whats going
on. The siege came after a police man was apparently killed in an explosion in
Al-Ekr. The thing is that the villagers of Al-Ekr claim that they never heard an
explosion, so the entire story is suspect. Either way, there's no excuse for
collective punishment. Also when policemen and security forces are allowed to
act with impunity, the government should expect that one of them will eventually
get killed. Zainab AlKhawaja, Yousif AlMuhafdha and Naji AlFateel (you obviously
know who Zainab is but the other two are also human rights activists that work
for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights) tried to enter the village but were
arrested (they were later released). Victoria Nuland is of course only
condemning the policeman's death (she didn't bother condemning the twitter
arrests that happened a few days before).
You can read more about the siege here:
By the way, the situation in Bahrain is dismal. Nabeel Rajab is in jail.
He'll be there for the next two years. The five remaining doctors had their
final appeal a few weeks ago. Their sentences were affirmed and they are now in
jail. This was completely unexpected, given the high profile nature of the case.
Anyone who is speaking up is being arrested. You posted about the people who
were arrested for tweeting against the King. The two former heads of the Bahrain
Teachers Association, Mahdi Abu Deeb and Jalila AlSalman (another high profile
case) were just sentenced to five years and six months respectively. You can
read more about their case here: "
