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Bahrain protester on death row urges rallies to continue

A protester kicks tear gas fired by riot police during clashes in the village of Bilad Al Qadeem, south of Manama, on 13 February 2015.

An anti-regime protester in Bahrain on death row has sent out a message from prison, urging the Bahraini people to press ahead with their rallies against the Manama regime.  

In a video message from prison released on Friday, Abbas al-Same said that the Bahraini revolution should continue. He also insisted that he was innocent.

On Thursday, a Bahraini court sentenced three people, among them Abbas al-Same, to death and seven others to life in prison after convicting them of allegedly killing three policemen in anti-regime protests in a village near the capital, Manama, last year.

According to Bahrain’s main opposition group, al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, the supreme criminal court also revoked the Bahraini citizenship of eight of the defendants.

On March 3, 2014, three police officers, including one from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), were killed in a bomb attack in Daih village near Manama.

However, no group claimed responsibility for the explosion, which occurred as Bahraini troops attacked the mourners of an anti-regime activist, who had died in prison a few days earlier.

The ruling, the latest in a series of strict penalties handed down to anti-regime protesters, once again brought people out onto the streets.

In the island city of Sitra and several villages, regime forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters who were calling for the release of all political prisoners.

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations on the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa family to relinquish power.

Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.

AR/NN/HMV


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