Human Rights Watch has accused Bahrain’s police of continuing to beat and torture detainees, including minors. The report comes nearly six months after an independent inquiry prompted the government to pledge reforms. The country insists it is committed to putting the recommendations of its own report into the handling of protests in 2011 into practice. [...]

Human rights are still being violated in Bahrain, despite promises of reform, according to Amnesty International. Ahead of the Grand Prix in Bahrain this weekend, Amnesty warns “no-one should be under any illusions that the country’s human rights crisis is over”. Bahrain insists it is “very much committed to implementing” the recommendations of its own [...]

Double standards have notoriously marked Britain and America’s response to the Arab Spring. But nowhere is the hypocrisy more glaring than in their reactions to the uprisings in Bahrain and Syria, where both countries’ governments have used the full might of their security forces to crush peaceful protests and jail and torture their opponents. When [...]

Mobs with iron rods and sticks ransacked a supermarket belonging to a major Shiite-owned business group, as part of a spike in violence in the Gulf nation in retaliation for a bomb attack on police. The attack appeared linked to a wave of reprisals and intimidation by suspected Sunni groups angered by the 14-month-old uprising [...]

The U.S.-backed monarchy in Bahrain continues the crackdown on protesters, with reports of many injuries and at least one death over the weekend. We speak to Zainab Alkhawaja, the daughter of jailed human rights leader Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is now on the 54th day of his hunger strike. Doctors say her father could go into [...]

Five weeks into his hunger strike, family members say Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, one of the best-known human rights activists in Bahrain, is now so weak that he can barely stand, according to a report in Al-Jazeera. Al-Khawaja and six others were given life sentences by the Bahraini government in what human rights groups have called an [...]

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa has called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to listen to his people. Hamad, who put down an uprising in his own country a year ago, told SPIEGEL that he regretted the events but had to intervene to stop the violence and protect women. The king of Bahrain, Hamad [...]

(Reuters) – The funeral march for Mohammed Yaacoub had barely ended last week when police and protesters faced off in the town of Sitra, an impoverished district of Bahrain that has borne the brunt of a year of unrest. Teenagers using scarves to mask their faces went on a rampage wielding iron bars and petrol [...]

The Bahraini government is a long-time U.S. ally receiving continued economic and military support from the Obama administration, despite an extended reign of repression in response to pro-democracy demonstrations. A recent independent probe into the government’s response concluded also that torture was systemic for hundreds of detained Bahrainis. The Obama administration has quietly moved forward [...]

President Barack Obama’s administration has been delaying its planned $53 million arms sale to Bahrain due to human rights concerns and congressional opposition, but this week administration officials told several congressional offices that they will move forward with a new and different package of arms sales — without any formal notification to the public. For [...]