Eight Bahraini activists and opposition leaders have been jailed for life and over a thousand activists remain in detention, reports Maryam Alkhawaja whose father and uncle are among those convicted
Eight Shia activists and opposition leaders have been sentenced to life imprisonment in Bahrain. They have been found guilty of plotting a coup in the Sunni-ruled kingdom during protests in March this year. Protests in response to the setences are expected, reports Al Jazeera English. Those convicted include Shia political leader Hassan Mushaima and the activists Abdulhady al-Khawaja and Abduljalil Al Singace. Thirteen other campaigners received lesser sentences between two and 15 years, reports the Guardian. Among these was Ibrahim Sharif, Sunni leader of the secular leftist group Waad, who was sentenced to five years.
Twenty-year-old student, Ayat al-Gormezi, who recited poems critical of Bahrain’s rulers at a Shia-led protest in Pearl Square has been sentenced to a year in prison. In the lead up to her trial she claimed that she was beaten in prison and she has now been convicted of charges which include inciting hatred. One verse of the poem, addressed directly to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, read: “We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery. Don’t you hear their cries?” According to her mother, Sada al-Qurmezi, an appeal is planned.
Ayat al-Gormezi, the 20 year old woman arrested for reading a poem at a pro-democracy rally in Pearl Square, Bahrain, is due to face a military tribunal later today. Just days after she read the poem which ended “Down with Hamad”, police raided her family home. The poet and student has claimed that she was forced to hand herself in when police held her four brothers at gunpoint. Al-Gormezi has spent time in a military hospital since being taken into police custody where she has received treatment for torture wounds. This is the latest in a growing number of violent acts towards female protesters in Bahrain.