Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Friday to march through the streets of the capital, Manama, in support of an arrested politician.
The lesson from the streets of Brazil, Turkey, and the Arab world is to avoid underestimating social movements still in their infancy.
Activists and opposition groups continue to demand the basic human rights and political reforms promised to them for more than two years, but the Bahraini government has responded by subjecting citizens to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and abuse.
Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam surfaced in London, after escaping from Bahrain, where he has been in hiding for two years. In absentia, Abdulemam, 35 years old, was slapped with a 15-year prison sentence for belonging to a terror organisation and for seeking to topple the government.
Following a widespread crackdown on dissent prior to the Bahrain Grand Prix last week, the Bahraini government have blocked a visit from the UN special rapporteur on torture “until further notice”, sparking debate on the use of torture and other abuses by the regime