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Hamad I Mohammed / Reuters
Anti-government protesters take cover as riot police fire tear gas during a protest in Manama on Thursday night.
Updated at 9:50 a.m. ET:
Protests in Bahrain appear to have picked up recently despite the findings released in November of a government-backed commission established to investigate abuses by the government and security forces, Mariwan Hama-Saeed of Human Rights Watch says.
"We were expecting (the government) just to ease up on these people, but since this report was published we've seen crackdowns every day," he says.
The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), set-up by the government in June, found that security forces had engaged in a patterns of serious human rights abuses, including the excessive use of force against peaceful protesters, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment of detainees and denial of fair trial guarantees.
The government of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has pledged to respond to the commission's findings, but an estimated hundreds remain in detention in the wake of the protests, with at least 23 of them being leaders of Bahrain's political opposition, Hama-Saeed says.
Published at 3:25 a.m. ET:
Bahraini security forces violently broke-up a protest in the Gulf kingdom's capital Friday, using tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the marchers, the BBC reported.
More than 3,000 people participated in the protest, which the government said was illegal, the BBC reported.
The march was led by leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, who was beaten by security forces on Friday, Jan. 6, according to Human Rights Watch.
"We are using the streets peacefully. We are marching for our rights," Rajab told the BBC.
Human Rights Watch on Friday called on authorities to "immediately halt attacks on peaceful protesters."
Bahrain, where members of the Shiite majority began protesting against the country's Sunni royal family in February, is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
On Thursday, the government said it would rebuild 12 Shiite mosques demolished by authorities during the unrest.
The work seeks to address allegations of abuses raised by an independent report on the uprising.
As part of the widespread crackdowns, Bahraini authorities razed Shiite mosques they claimed were built illegally or had other violations.
Over 35 people are thought to have died in the unrest on the island nation in the Gulf off the Coast of Saudi Arabia, which has a population of around 1.2 million.
Msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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"The march was led by leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, who was beaten by security forces on Friday, Jan. 6, according to Human Rights Watch."
To quell the peaceful protests by the Shiites majority in Bahrain against the despotic, bigoted and highly corrupt Sunni ruler, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni despotic and highly corrupt rulers sent their armies to Bahrain.
Even the Shiites mosques were erased to ground!
UN and human rights groups are looking other way on the genocides of Shiites in Sunni ruled nations.
Saudi Arabia and their cheer leading rulers of UAE, Kuwait and others in the name of oil and wealth are getting away with murders, funding highly radical Islamic Salaffi and Wahhabi mosques all over the world and exporting its variety of most barbaric, beastly Sunni Islamic radicalism and terrorism all over the world.
These have become major problem inventors all over the world. These days due to these mad people even travel is not easy!
Let Shiites have their say in Bahrain instead of some Sunni despot and his gangsters ruling them.
Hmm, Sunnis who kill Shiites, or Shiites who demand Shariah law for the entire globe.... I wonder which is worse?
I couldn't agree with you more.
Never happen.Bahrain is sunni forever.The Shiites have no say,never will.
Sounds like Bahrain has learn hold to control their protestors by watching what has been happening to the wall street prosters. Good Bahrian, if they continue to protest kill a few and the rest will go away, it works in the US.
Bahrain: Crushing Pro-Democracy Protests. American and British Police Chiefs Step Up State Repression
Top Western appointments allegedly aimed at improving human rights...
Two former police chiefs from the US and Britain have brought discernible Western “expertise” to the Bahraini force only weeks following their appointments – a surge in repression and state terrorism.Former Miami police chief John Timoney and his British counterpart, John Yates, formerly commander at London’s Scotland Yard, were assigned last month by Bahrain’s royal rulers to “oversee reform” of the Persian Gulf kingdom’s security forces. Officially, the appointment of the American and Briton was to bring Western professional policing to the Bahraini force and specifically to upgrade the human rights record of Bahrain’s ministry of interior and National Security Agency.
Lets not forget the U.S. military aid to Israel for 10 years, and particularly the $30 billion of taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel scheduled between 2009 and 2018. We're organizing to end these weapons transfers both because of their horrific enabling of Israel's human rights abuses of Palestinians and because this money would be much better spent to fund unmet comunity need here in US.Take, for example, a typical mid-size city like Ft. Wayne, IN (population 253,691). Its residents will pay $40.9 million in federal taxes for weapons to Israel between 2009 and 2018. With that same money, nearly 500 low-income families in Ft. Wayne could get affordable housing each year! Let's make these trade-offs clear to people in our cities.
people are DUMB and Cruel, as long as they hide behind their "beliefs" to gain political advantage or vent their venom in the name of GOD there will be no peace. This is why religon has NO place in goverment NONE stupids..
be it muslim,christian,judism, or whatever...NONE idiots!!!! people always kill and then go and pray,,pieces of crap, call them what they are I'd throw my shoes at you but I would rather walk in dog @!$%#zzz with them...
The rulers of Bahrain seem to be digging their on graves.While the Saudis and Kuwaitis may be on their side,they would do well to make peace with their Shia majority.Remember Iraq and Iran are both ruled by Shia governments,and the Iraqi Shia in particular remember being oppressed by a Sunni government.So I'd think they may come to the aid of their fellow Arab Shia,whether openly or secretly.