Bahrain Mirror- Exclusive: Speaking about the 6th anniversary of the "Bahraini uprising", the Italian "lfatto Quotidiano" newspaper described it as "forgotten in Saint Valentine's Day".

The newspaper said "on February 14, 2011, the LuaLua (Pearl) roundabout in the capital Manama, witnessed the first demonstrations in the small island in the Persian Gulf ruled by the Al Khalifa family. These demonstrations demanded rights, freedoms and putting an end to the discrimination practiced against the Shia majority."

It pointed out to the Saudi propaganda that said that the Bahraini uprising is inspired by Iran and that its supporters continued to protest because it is "popular". Men, women, human rights activists, teachers, trade unionists, doctors, journalists and even many sports players took to the streets in the past years.

The newspaper also tackled the military Saudi intervention in 2011, referring to the silence of Bahrain's key allies, US and UK governments.  

It also talked about the torture, attacking the "peaceful" protests, excessive use of tear case, death penalty "executed against three dissidents on the onset of 2017," life-term sentence against one of Bahrain's prominent human rights defenders Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja and expelling his daughters Maryam and Zainab, arrest of Nabeel Rajab who faces up to 15 years in prison over tweets and an article he published in the New York Times newspaper, outrageous measures including stripping of citizenships (from 80 persons in 2016 only) as well as the travel ban, indicating that at least 30 human rights defenders were prevented from leaving the country to attend the UNHRC session in the UN.

Arabic Version