AhlulBayt News Agency

source :
Wednesday

28 September 2011

8:30:00 PM
268503

Bahrainis condemn crackdown on women

Hundreds of Bahrainis have taken to the streets to protest against the brutal government crackdown on female protesters, Press TV has learned.

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The protest rallies were reported in several villages including Dair, Sitra, and Muqaba on Wednesday.

The demonstrators also dismissed last weekend's parliamentary by-elections held to fill the 18 seats abandoned by opposition lawmakers as a sham.

Meanwhile, anti-regime protesters have created massive traffic jams in the capital, Manama, for the third consecutive day. The Bahraini opposition has organized the gathering, which is named the "Dignity Blockade."

On Monday, Bahrain's main opposition bloc, al-Wefaq, announced that Saudi-backed Bahraini forces had arrested 45 women on Friday, one day before the by-elections, for chanting anti-regime slogans in a shopping mall in the capital.

According to Amnesty International, the women, including seven minors aged between 12 and 15, have been tortured and denied legal representation.

"They were apprehended without lawyers present and some of them reportedly tortured or otherwise ill-treated," the London-based advocacy group said in a statement.

Al-Wefaq condemned the women's arrests as "savage and inhumane,' saying that they had only been expressing their "right to freedom of expression."

Election results in Bahrain show that more than 80 percent of the electorate has refused to vote in the country's recent parliamentary by-elections.

According to a Bahraini government website, less than one in every five voters cast their ballots on Saturday.

Of the 144,513 eligible voters in 14 districts only 25,130 came out to vote, representing a 17.4 percent turnout, the Bahraini government's elections website www.vote.bh reported.

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