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Bahraini authorities have remanded into custody for seven days the daughter of jailed human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja for protesting during last week's Formula One Grand Prix.
Zainab al-Khawaja was arrested on Saturday night, one day before the F1 race, while sitting peacefully in the middle of a main road leading to the Bahrain International Circuit, demanding the cancellation of the race, the end of the Manama crackdown on protests, and the release of her father who has been on hunger strike for almost 77 days.
She was charged with disrupting traffic and insulting an officer. Zainab has been arrested several times for organizing protests demanding her father's release. It is her second detention in a month.
Meanwhile, mystery surrounds the whereabouts of Khawaja and his wife, Khadija al-Mousawi, said on Wednesday that there has been no information on his health since two days ago.
"Something is very wrong. He was talking about accepting death as the path of freedom, he sounded very weak and tired," Reuters quoted Mousawi as saying, referring to her last conversation with Khawaja on Monday.
Khawaja, the co-founder and former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, went on hunger strike in early February to protest against the life sentence he received last year and Manama’s ongoing crackdown on peaceful protests.
Despite national and international calls for Khawaja's release, Manama has so far refused to drop charges against him. Bahrain’s Court of Cassation is due to rule on Khawaja's appeal against his conviction next week.
Amnesty International considers Khawaja a ‘prisoner of conscience, detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression.’
