A court in Bahrain has sentenced seven anti-regime protesters to 15 years in prison as pressure on dissent mounts in the country.
According to Bahraini judicial sources on Sunday, the protesters were sentenced for allegedly attacking a Bahraini policeman in the village of Dia near the capital Manama during a demonstration in December 2012.
The incident marks the latest in a series of harsh sentences handed down to protesters in the Persian Gulf nation.
On April 2, a court in Manama sentenced nine people, including teenagers, to jail terms ranging from five to ten years each on charges of attacking police during anti-regime rallies.
The court said the protesters were among around 30 masked men who allegedly pelted a police patrol vehicle with Molotov cocktails in the village of Nuwaidrat in March last year.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have held numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.
On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government in its crackdown on peaceful protesters.
Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds injured and jailed by the regime forces since the uprising broke out.
In February, Amnesty International denounced the “relentless repression” of anti-regime protesters in the Persian Gulf kingdom, blaming Bahraini security forces for their repeated use of “excessive force to quash anti-government protests.”
Source/Fuente: http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/04/06/357471/bahrain-sentences-7-prot...
