Manama: Bahrain eased by one hour a curfew it imposed in mid-March around a highway in Manama.
The exclusion zone, 500 metres on either side of King Faisal Highway, is now off limits between midnight and 4am, the Bahrain Defence Force said.
The new timing indicates better security conditions in the capital, scene to some of the most violent clashes during the unrest that hit the country near the end of four weeks of protests.
The curfew was part of measures taken by the authorities under the state of national safety, emergency laws, that limited public gatherings, but did not freeze political societies.
The laws are expected to end in mid-June, but the lower chamber of the bicameral parliament in an anticipatory move on Tuesday called for their extension by three months.
The lower chamber is now made up of 22 lawmakers, all elected in October, after the 18 members representing Al Wefaq, the largest political society, resigned to protest against the way the authorities treated demonstrators the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Roundabout, popularly known as the Pearl Roundabout, the epicenter of protests launched on February 14.
In Manama, the office of the justice minister said that doctors would be put on trial for, among other charges, killing two Bahraini citizens, and not for providing assistance to demonstrators as claimed in some reports.
Shaikh Khalid Bin Ali Al Khalifa, the justice minister, on Tuesday said that 47 doctors, nurses and paramedics would face legal charges for allegedly abusing their positions.
