Bahraini rights activist Khawaja goes on open-ended hunger strike

Leading Bahraini human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is serving a life sentence in relation to his influential role in the 2011 protests against the Al Khalifah regime, has reportedly gone on hunger strike.

Maryam al-Khawaja, the co-director of the [Persian] Gulf Center for Human Rights ([P]GCHR), tweeted that his father “has started an open-ended hunger strike” at the notorious Jaw prison in protest at his continued arbitrary detention and new repressive measures against inmates, Arabic-language Lualua television network reported.

Some of the new measures include denying the detainees access to medical care, cancelling hospital appointments, forcing inmates to wear shackles once outside their cells, and severely limiting family visits.

Last month, human right campaigners warned against the new restrictions, stressing that they had dramatically deteriorated the already poor living conditions at Jaw prison.

Meanwhile, Bahraini officials have briefly detained a senior Bahrain Center for Human Rights member at Bahrain International Airport upon return from a family vacation in Europe.