(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Earlier this month, the Persian Gulf Arab island's Sunni rulers imposed martial law and called in troops from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, to quell the protest movement led mostly by the state's Shi'ite majority.
The severity of the crackdown, in which public gatherings are banned and security forces have been deployed at checkpoints, stunned Bahrain's Shi'ites and angered the region's non-Arab Shi'ite power Iran.
Some members of the opposition saw the arrests as a move by the authorities to cement gains against them after the crackdown, in which forces razed Manama's Pearl Square where demonstrators had camped out and tore down its central statue.
"The government says it is taking steps to ensure stability and security, but what's happening is the exact opposite. We're in one of the most dangerous stages, where citizens have no security," said Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, a member of the country's largest Shi'ite opposition group Wefaq.
"They're being arrested and kidnapped at checkpoints that are all over Bahrain. The checkpoints are a place of fear."
Activists and politicians say a growing number of reform campaigners are going into hiding.
"The situation is critical ... Almost all the bloggers and activists who aren't in jail are now in hiding," said Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.
"They raided 15 houses in my neighbourhood last night but they only got two people, so I assume the rest are hiding."
Mattar said Wefaq had counted 302 arrests by Wednesday but believed the number would reach 400 soon.
More than 80 percent of Bahrainis are Shi'ites and most want a constitutional monarchy. Demands by hardliners for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed minority Sunnis.
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