Bahrain upholds 10-year jail term for photo journalist

DUBAI: A Bahraini appeals court on Sunday upheld a controversial 10-year-jail term against a photojournalist convicted over his presence at a 2012 attack on a police station.
The appeal judges confirmed the sentence handed down by a lower court on March 26.
The 25-year-old photojournalist, who was in court for the appeal ruling, was convicted of attacking the police station in the village of Sitra, outside the capital on April 8, 2012.
Humaidan was part of a group of 29 Shiites, tried together from Feb. 12, 2013 for attacking the police station with Molotov cocktails and other improvised explosives.
Twenty-six of them, including Humaidan, were jailed for 10 years and three were jailed for three years.
Meanwhile, jailed activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja has been on hunger strike for a week seeking release, his lawyer said on Sunday, adding that authorities have arrested his daughter at the airport.
Jailed for life for plotting to overthrow the monarchy, 54-year-old Khawaja staged a 110-day hunger strike in 2012 over his imprisonment. Authorities said they will continue to monitor Khawaja’s health.
Since the start of his hunger strike, a doctor has seen Khawaja “17 times” in five days, the interior ministry’s Ombudsman Office said in a statement reported by official BNA news agency. BNA also said Khawaja sent a letter to the prison authorities saying that “he would go on a hunger strike until he is released.”
Authorities late on Saturday arrested his daughter Maryam Al-Khawaja — codirector of the Gulf Center For Human Rights which has offices in Copenhagen and Beirut — upon her arrival at Bahrain International Airport.
Authorities finally granted Maryam a visa but accused her of “attacking policewomen” at the airport and held her in detention “for seven days pending investigation,” he told AFP.