(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - "Authorities have been refusing since yesterday (Sunday) all requests, made by myself and by his family, to visit or contact al-Khawaja," Mohammed al-Jeshi told us.
"We fear that he might have passed away as there is no excuse for them to prevent us from visiting or contacting him," he said, adding that no information was available on Khawaja's health.
Jeshi said the last time he contacted Khawaja was on Saturday, a day after he was moved from the interior ministry hospital into a military hospital in Manama.
Khawaja, a Shia Muslim who was condemned with other opposition activists to life in jail over an alleged plot to topple the monarchy during a month-long protest a year ago, began a hunger strike on the night of February 8-9.
Bahrain's largest opposition formation Al-Wefaq reiterated its calls for his release on Monday in a statement accusing authorities of "completely ignoring his deteriorating health which has reached a dangerous stage."
Demonstrations in solidarity with Khawaja have multiplied across the tiny kingdom where youth groups organize almost daily evening protests.
Denmark has asked Bahrain to send Khawaja, who is also a Danish citizen, to the Scandinavian country. Bahrain's official news agency BNA reported Sunday that Manama had turned down the request.
But Danish papers quoted the head of the foreign ministry's consular service, Ole Engberg Mikkelsen, as saying that "a (formal) reply will come through diplomatic channels and not via a news agency or Twitter."
Mikkelsen said he did not know when Manama would send its official reply.
"Unfortunately there is not much time. It is a case where the clock is ticking," he said. "We are continuing our efforts to convince Bahrain that it is in everyone's interest that he be extradited."
Front Line Defenders, a Dublin-based NGO, warned that Khawaja could now die in jail, while Al-Wefaq has said refusing a transfer to Denmark amounted to having "signed his death" sentence.
Khawaja, the co-founder and former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, began a hunger strike to protest against the life sentence he received last year and Manama’s ongoing crackdown on peaceful protests.
Amnesty International has also called for the ‘immediate and unconditional release’ of Khawaja, considering him a ‘prisoner of conscience, detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression.’
Meanwhile, protesters have gathered outside the United Nations headquarters in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, calling on the international community to support the revolution in Bahrain.
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