MANAMA (Middle East Eye) – Four people have been arrested near the Bahrain Grand Prix for peacefully protesting and demanding the release of political prisoners, according to the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird).
Former political prisoners Hajer Mansoor and Najah Yusuf were among those arrested. Yusuf told Middle East Eye that they were then “treated inhumanely” by a senior police officer.
“The officer described us as criminals, belittled and disrespected us with such an inappropriate description,” Yusuf said.
The two Bahraini women were both imprisoned and allegedly tortured in 2017 after protesting against Formula One’s presence in the kingdom.
The two men arrested alongside them on Sunday were Ali Muhana and Muneer Mushaima.
Muhana is the father of a Bahraini political prisoner, Husain Muhana. Mushaima is the brother of Sami Mushaima, a Shia man executed by the Persian Gulf kingdom in 2017. Redha Mushaima, Muneer’s other brother, is currently in prison in Bahrain.
The arrest happened at Formula Petrol Station, which is just a few meters away from the Bahrain International Circuit, where Sunday’s race took place.
Video footage showed the protesters being surrounded by police cars, with one of the demonstrators reporting that there were seven police vehicles present before the arrests took place at 6.24pm local time.
Najah Yusuf had been holding a sign that read: “For protesting F1 in 2017, I was beaten, tortured and served two years in prison. I am still dismissed from my job. Meanwhile, F1 makes millions from our suffering. Shame on them.”
Hajer Mansoor’s sign read: “My son Sayed Nizar completed six years of his arbitrary sentence this week. He was arrested when he was 18 and subjected to harrowing torture. The UN called for his release. @F1 shame on you for refusing to meet torture victims.”
In October last year, both women filed a legal complaint against F1 saying it had breached the human rights standards it pledged to follow by hosting the Grand Prix in Bahrain.
After being held for around two and a half hours at Eastern Riffa police station, Bahraini authorities confiscated the protesters’ signs and took their IDs.
Bahrain continues to imprison its population at the highest rate of any country in the Middle East, with an estimated 1,300 political prisoners in a country of half a million. Formula One has held races in Bahrain since 2004.
Since 2017, Bahraini authorities have banned all independent media in the country and dissolved all significant opposition groups, according to Human Rights Watch.