Bahrain steps up detentions, releases prominent blogger

Bahrain released a prominent blogger but detained several people, including a pro-opposition doctor, the latest in a series of arrests since the kingdom's crackdown on street protests, opposition sources said on Friday.

The tiny island's Sunni rulers have stepped up arrests of cyber activists and Shiites, with more than 300 detained and dozens missing since the crackdown on pro-democracy protests earlier this month.

It imposed martial law and called in troops from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbors, including Saudi Arabia, to quell the protest movement led mostly by the state's Shiite majority.

Hundreds of detainees

More than 60 percent of Bahrainis are Shiites and most want a constitutional monarchy.

Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, a member of Bahrain's largest Shiite opposition group, Wefaq, said the party's official arrest count was 329 by Thursday, but that the real number was likely to be over 400.

He said at least 20 people had been detained on Thursday and 31 were missing. It was unclear if those people were in hiding or had been abducted.

There have been several reports of missing people who have turned up dead days later, but activists say that many of their peers are also going into hiding to avoid arrest.

Mahmood al-Yousif

Prominent blogger Mahmood al-Yousif, who for years has promoted anti-sectarianism under the slogan "No Shiite, No Sunni, Just Bahraini", was detained on Wednesday and released late on Thursday, after criticism from the U.S. State Department.

"I'm back home now with my family. Everything is fine," he told Reuters by telephone. "I've been treated well enough. They investigated me but didn't find anything."

The United States has criticized the arrest, while also renewing its condemnation of violence in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom where Shiite-led protests broke out in mid-February.

"We're deeply concerned about his arrest. He's a prominent and respected blogger," Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, said on Wednesday.

"We're also concerned about reports of the detention of two other Internet activists who have expressed their views on recent events in Bahrain," Toner said.

"We hope that the Bahraini government's decision to arrest bloggers and Internet activists will not make it more difficult to resume a national dialogue," he said.

Yousif, who is also known as the "Blogfather," himself tweeted early on Wednesday from his home that he was being arrested.

His blog, "Mahmood's Den," describes itself as "an Arab man's attempt at bridging the cultural gap. Trying to make a difference, failing a lot, succeeding once in a while."

We're deeply concerned about his arrest. He's a prominent and respected blogger

Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman

Arrests

Opposition sources said Abdul Khaleq al-Oraibi, a doctor at Salmaniya Hospital, the kingdom's biggest, had also been detained.

Oraibi, who once considered running as a member of parliament for Wefaq, had been publicly critical of the lack of access for medics to wounded protesters.

The severity of Bahrain's crackdown, in which public gatherings are banned and security forces have been deployed at checkpoints, stunned Bahrain's Shiites and angered the region's non-Arab Shiite power Iran.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states fearful of rising Iranian influence see Bahrain as a red line among the popular uprisings that have swept the region since January.

At least 24 people, including four policemen, were killed in a month of protests, according to Bahraini officials. Toner said U.S. officials "condemn the violence against civilians and peaceful protesters" in Bahrain.

On Thursday, Bahraini authorities said a teenager who died of injuries near Manama this week was not shot as alleged by the Shiite opposition but had suffered a "fatal neck fracture."