fotojournalismus:

Bahraini women chant anti-government slogans during a mourning procession for Qassim Habib, 8, in Manama, Bahrain on Jan. 30, 2013. Clashes erupted after the procession for the boy, who opposition groups say died from respiratory problems triggered by heavy tear gas.

[Credit : Hasan Jamali/AP]

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fotojournalismus:

Women take part in a march in the capital Manama, Bahrain, on Dec. 17, 2012. Protesters, shouting anti-government slogans, attempted to regroup from various points to march against a ban on demonstrations. Riot police dispersed them and arrested at least three protesters.

[Credit : Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters]

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insaniyat:

nickturse:

Bahraini Shiite Muslim women take part in a Labour Day pro-democracy protest in the Manama suburb of Sanabis on May 1, 2012. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Shiite villages in Bahrain to demand being reinstated in jobs from which they were fired during last year’s uprising, witnesses said. [Getty]

frommadon:

Zainab al-Khawaja protesting alone in the streets of Bahrain against the arrest and detention of her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja—a revered human rights defender—who entered the seventieth-day of his hunger strike. She was arrested by Bahraini security forces shortly after this photo was taken. 

More on Abdulhadi al-Khawaja

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pantslessprogressive:

“We are still here, we are demanding, and we exist.”

In a muted yet poignant piece from Anthony Shadid, the town of Sitra, Bahrain is highlighted and given some much-needed attention as the spotlight of the Arab Spring has largely fallen off the tiny island nation.

In this rattled town which a resident described as a “miniature version of Bahrain,” young protesters demonstrate on a daily basis and continue to feel the heat from security forces and the Bahrain monarchy.

On a recent night, after clashes that erupt almost daily, one [young man] entered the house of a relative, squinting as though he had stumbled from a dungeon into the sun. Tear gas. His friend smirked as he showed the smooth scars left by rubber bullets fired at his leg and chest. Another shrugged as he removed his shirt to reveal a back scarred by pellets.

“Sitra,” said the friend, Sanad, “is the crisis.”

Despite the continued demonstrations, the feeling of defiance has swept over some town residents.

One of the protesters killed in Sitra was Ali Jawad Ahmed, a 14-year-old who died Aug. 30. His family says a tear gas canister struck him in the head. No one here believes the government version, that he was the victim of a criminal act. […]

When his father finally saw his body, still wearing an Italian soccer jersey and shorts, his head was so bandaged that his father said he could find nowhere to kiss his face.

“Why did they have to kill my son?” his father asked. “He was only a boy. Why didn’t they just arrest him?” He shook his head. “No, they had to kill him.”

Read it at the NY Times.

(Source: pantslessprogressive, via brownnippleafficionada-deactiva)

theatlantic:

Exiled and 24: The Young Woman Fighting for Bahrain

When Maryam al-Khawaja and I first met in March, in a dingy hospital hallway in Manama, Bahrain’s regime had just tear gassed hundreds of its staunchest detractors, shooting them with rubber bullets and live ammunition while they slept and prayed. The dead and wounded were brought to Salmaniya medical center, where their loved ones were met by an energetic girl in jeans and a head scarf, hopping from floor to floor directing foot traffic, doling out information to worried families, and escorting aid workers. 

Around 3 a.m., with the screams of a grieving mother echoing down the corridor, Maryam delivered a denunciation indictment of the U.S.’s silence on what was going on around her, calling Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s criticism of the regime a mere wrist slap. By May, she had found a bigger audience, having left Bahrain for the U.S. and Europe, her anecdotes and big brown eyes humanizing Bahrain’s faltering opposition for a West that did not fully understand it. 

From Brown University to the Oslo Freedom Forum to Voice of America, she preached the gospel that had been violently muted on Manama’s streets — the regime, she repeated, was doing grievous things, and the U.S. and its allies needed to step up their rhetoric. 

Last week, her work took on a new urgency, when father Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, the country’s best-known opposition activist, was marched into a closed-door military tribunal and sentenced to life in prison for anti-government propaganda. 

That a 24-year-old girl has become the face of one of the most repressed Arab Spring revolutions comes as a surprise only to those who don’t know her lineage. Maryam’s was born in Denmark to then-exiled Abdulhadi and his wife, Khadija, who had been banned from Bahrain in the mid-1980s. They lived in Denmark until returning to Manama in 2001, as soon as they were allowed re-entry. Maryam was 14

Read more at The Atlantic

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