Manama: A tense calm reigned in Bahrain yesterday after hours of clashes between the police and rioters who were protesting the arrest of three activists on Friday morning.
The clashes in which the police used rubber bullets and tear gas and the protesters hurled stones, erupted at about 2.30pm after the Friday prayers in Sanabis and Daih, two Shiite villages in the Manama suburbs that have been the traditional scene for confrontations between angry youth and security staff.
But despite the release of Hassan Meshema, leader of Haq, the Movement of Liberties and Democracy, Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja, chairman of the now-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights Centre and Shaker Abdul Ali in the evening, the clashes continued well into the night, an ominous indication of the nerve-wracking situation generated by the arrests.
Calls for regime change
"Security forces arrested three people on Friday morning for committing crimes related to calls for regime change through illegitimate means, incitement to hatred against the regime and using indecent language to describe the regime," Ministry of Interior Assistant Undersecretary for Legal affairs Mohammad Rashed Bu Hmood said in a statement.
The trio was questioned by the public prosecution in the afternoon amid tight security around the building before they were released.
Their lawyers said that the arrest was based on speeches delivered last week and coinciding with the marking of Ashura, the anniversary of the slaying of Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
The police said that the activists availed themselves of the religious occasion to "spread ideas that provoked resentment and undermined stability and national unity."
In separate speeches, Meshema, 58, and Al Khawaja, 46, both Shiites, have allegedly attacked the regime and referred to a report prepared by Salah Al Bander, a Briton of Sudanese origin who worked as a consultant in Bahrain and who last September disseminated a 240-page report accusing a cell within the government of fomenting sectarian strife and conspiring against Shiites in Bahrain.
The High Criminal Court in October imposed a ban on reporting or discussing the report "to ensure an impartial investigation into the case."
Several websites have since been blocked for posting statements on the issue and last month two journalists were questioned by the prosecutor after they discussed the case in separate reports.
But activists claimed that the arrests could be linked to a conference about reforms in Bahrain planned by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research on February 13 in Washington.
