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Bahrain intensified its crackdown on dissent as the war between the United States and Iran reignited unrest in the Gulf kingdom, where critics say authorities have stepped up tactics used to suppress Arab Spring protests in 2011. The case of Mohamed al-Mousawi, a Shiite Muslim who had been imprisoned previously, has become a flashpoint as his death is linked by supporters to allegations of abuse and enforced disappearance during the conflict.
Relatives told the Associated Press that al-Mousawi was detained after he attended prayers with two friends, and that he then vanished for days. They said his family was later called to retrieve his body from a military hospital, and that his body showed slash marks and bruising, including bruising on the soles of his feet. AP said multiple witnesses described injury marks in images and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said al-Mousawi was arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran, and that his family denied the allegations. The ministry also said images of injuries were “inaccurate and misleading,” while Bahrain’s government said the kingdom was defending its national security and that independent bodies investigate abuse allegations. Bahrain said it rejected sectarian framing and said actions taken were lawful.
Al-Mousawi had served about 11 years of a 21-year sentence on charges that included arson and belonging to a terrorist cell before being released in 2024 as part of a royal amnesty. The Interior Ministry said he had been held by the National Security Agency, and the AP report said the domestic spy service had previously been stripped of powers to arrest on abuse allegations after 2011 protests but had seen those powers restored in 2017.
The death certificate from the military hospital, the report said, stated al-Mousawi died of a heart attack. His family said he had no preexisting conditions. Ahmed Banasr, a forensic expert with Physicians for Human Rights, told AP that wounds in the images were consistent with blunt force trauma and that wounds on the soles of his feet help rule out explanations such as a fight or fall. “The findings are highly consistent with alleged torture,” Banasr said.
Rights groups and activists described al-Mousawi’s death as part of a broader wave of arrests tied to the war, with critics saying Bahrain is treating the mostly Shiite protesters as Iranian proxies. Sayed Ahmed AlWadaei of the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy said authorities want to ensure that “nobody challenges the state’s narrative and silence any voices not telling the story (of the war) how they want it to be told.”
Bahrain’s government said its security measures were a “direct and proportionate response” to Iran’s attacks and said those arrested included people who filmed military and strategic sites during an active attack on Bahraini territory, passed sensitive information, or publicly expressed support for a state that launched strikes against Bahrain. The government also said arrests were not evidence of sectarian persecution and that it rejected that framing.
AP reported that since the war’s start, dozens of people have been arrested for sharing images of what authorities described as “Iranian aggression,” or for expressing sympathy for it, with some facing charges that can carry severe punishment. Bahrain also hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and AP reported that Iran has repeatedly targeted the headquarters.
The AP report also described another case from early in the conflict: Hussein Fatiil, 21, and a friend posted social media videos after waving a poster of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, at a protest outside the U.S. Embassy. Hussein’s father, Naji Fatiil, told AP that plainclothes officers took the men away in an unmarked car minutes later, and that Hussein later called to say he faced five charges that included misusing social media, inciting hatred, and treason. Naji Fatiil said he believes the charges “are extremely serious and exaggerate what happened,” and he said his son told him the protest was peaceful.
The AP report said activists living abroad described the crackdown as heavier than in prior years. Maryam al-Khawaja, a Bahraini activist whose father is jailed in Bahrain, said the government had gone further in suppressing dissent, describing the current period as “definitely a lot more heavy-handed than we have in the past few years.”