Bahrain: Wefaq Leaders Detained, Opposition Paper Shut Down, Doctors And Nurses To Be Tried

Over the past day, the Bahraini government has detained two opposition leaders, shut down the only opposition newspaper and announced it will prosecute medical professionals for treating protesters. Jawad Ferooz, the vice-president of the party, and Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, who recently resigned as a member of parliament, were detained on Monday evening. Joe Stork, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch noted a pattern of government critics being arrested by plain-clothed masked men and then being denied access to their families and legal counsel. In some cases the arrested turn up dead. Bahraini state television recently released a documentary in which one now-deceased protester claimed that Mattar ordered him to kill policemen by running them over with his car. The shutdown of Al Wasat follows its suspension last month when it was accused of falsifying news about sectarian unrest and the government crackdown. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists has criticised Bahrain’s measures against the paper, saying the accusations were unsubstantiated. Reporters Without Borders has added Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa to its list of “predators” against press freedoms.