Bahrain announced the deportation of four foreign activists for “taking part in illegal demonstrations,” bringing to 12 the number expelled over the past week.
The four were deported for “lying on immigration forms” as their “visas were issued for the purposes of tourism but all were participating in illegal demonstrations,” the official BNA news agency reported late on Friday.
The news agency did not specify the nationalities of those deported but the main Shiite opposition group Al-Wefaq said they included one American and one Briton.
Last Tuesday marked the first anniversary of the launch of month-long Shiite-led pro-democracy protests that were bloodily crushed by the kingdom’s Sunni minority rulers with the help of a Saudi-led military intervention.
On the anniversary, the authorities announced the expulsion of eight Americans. Three days earlier, they deported two more.
The authorities have multiplied restrictions around the anniversary not only for foreign activists but also the international media, denying press visas to several news organisations including AFP.
Tiny but strategic Bahrain is the home base of the US Fifth Fleet.
The Gulf Arab state has imposed a security clampdown this week in a bid to avert mass protests on the anniversary of the Feb. 14 pro-democracy uprising last year and prevent Shi’ites from reaching the Pearl Roundabout, a junction in capital Manama that became the focal point of protests.
But activists continued to stage protests in a cat-and-mouse game with police to press their demand for democratic reforms that would give Bahrain’s elected parliament power to form governments. Shi’ites complain of political and economic marginalisation by the Sunni ruling Al Khalifa family, an accusation the government denies.
On Friday a group of about 150 women, led by two foreign activists, staged a protest, facing off for several minutes with lines of riot police that included a small women force. One of the protest leaders wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “unarmed civilian”, another potester shouted: “Sunnis, Shia — brothers”.
Riot police told them to break up the protest, then threw a round of stun grenades and teargas. One woman was dragged away by women riot police after she was pepper sprayed.
“These women are protesting peacefully,” Medea Benjamin, an American with an observer group called Witness Bahrain, shouted as she was being dragged away. The other woman who was detained gave her name as Elaine Murthagh, an independent Irish-British activist.
At least 10 foreign activists have been deported this week. (Agencies)