The Manama incident on August 26, 2010 involved the arrest in the Seef shopping mall in Manama, Bahrain, of Fakhria al-Singace, the sister of Dr Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, human-rights spokesperson for the Bahrain opposition Haq Movement. According to The New York Times, three women wearing the niqāb and abaya entered the mall and unfurled a banner reading, "It is forbidden to arbitrarily arrest and detain people". More than a dozen plainclothes and uniformed police officers surrounded them, and Fakhria al-Singace was handcuffed and arrested after being pinned spread-eagled to a cafe table.[1] She was released the next day.[2]
The women were protesting against the arrests of several human rights activists, including Abdul Jalil al-Singace, who was detained on August 13 at Bahrain International Airport after returning from a conference in London, where he had offered evidence about the human rights situation in Bahrain. The government has accused him of involvement in terrorism.[3] The arrests are part of a crackdown on political opposition in Bahrain that saw 159 arrests in two weeks in August 2011, with many activists reportedly held without charge or access to lawyers or family members.[1]
Amnesty International has asked the government to reveal the whereabouts of eight of the detainees, who include a number of Shia clerics.[4] Local websites describing the situation have been blocked by the government.[1]
The Sunni governing family is concerned about upcoming parliamentary elections on October 23 that could see it lose to the country's Shiite majority. Bahrain's close relationship with the United States — it hosts an American naval base — and its Shiite citizens' relationships with Iran, have added to the tension.[1]
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