26th/ 27th/ 28th October 2013

BAHRAIN MEDIA ROUNDUP

Bahrain defends use of teargas following criticism
Bahrain has defended its use of teargas after rights groups criticized the Gulf kingdom's reported plans to buy 1.6 million canisters of the material. Local and international rights groups have accused the authorities of using teargas excessively and of ring canisters directly at protesters or into cars and houses where they can cause serious injuries. "Teargas is non-lethal and it is used appropriately by the police, in compliance with the law and in full adherence with the internationally accepted standards contained in the Bahrain police code of conduct," the government spokesman's ofce said in an email to Reuters. Read More seven years to three after a lower court had convicted them in December over Abdul Karim Fakhrawi's death in custody in April 2011. Fakhrawi was a publisher and had co-founded AlWasat daily, which the authorities was shuttered following the crackdown on month-long Shiite-led protests in mid-March that year. Read More

1000s stage antiregime protest in Bahrain

Thousands of people have staged a demonstration near the Bahraini capital Manama, calling for political reforms in the Persian Gulf kingdom, APA reports quoting Press TV.

On Friday, the Bahrainis held the anti-regime protest rally in solidarity with freelance journalist and photographer Hussain Hubail, who has been in Al Khalifa regimes custody for nearly three months. Hubail was arrested on August 1 on charges of taking part in unauthorized protests and campaigning against the Bahraini regime through social networks. Read More

Bahrain court cuts terms for police jailed over death

Bahrain's appeals court today cut the jail terms of two policemen convicted of torturing to death a Shiite detainee after a 2011 crackdown on protests, a judicial source said. The court reduced the terms of the men from