The Bahraini uprising is a series of demonstrations, amounting to a sustained campaign of civil resistance, in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain. The Bahraini uprising is one of the uprisings that started in 2011 as a part of the Arab Spring. Although the uprising in Bahrain even started before the conflict in Syria it is one of the few that gets media attention. Inspired by the successful uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, opposition activists starting from January 2011 filled the social media websites Facebook and Twitter as well as online forums, e-mails and text messages with calls to stage major pro-democracy protests. Bahraini youths described their plans as an appeal for Bahrainis "to take to the streets on Monday 14 February in a peaceful and orderly manner in order to rewrite the constitution and to establish a body with a full popular mandate". The protesters which are mainly Shia and are feeling discriminated in their own country for being Shia. Bahrain is ruled by a Sunni Khalifa with close ties to Saudi-Arabia. With a high unemployment in the country mostly among Shia youths the people have come together to remove the ruling party. Saudi-Arabia has claimed that Iran is behind the revolution in Bahrain but a report which was released on 23 November confirmed the Bahraini government's use of systematic torture and other forms of physical and psychological abuse on detainees, as well as other human rights violations. It also rejected the government's claims that the protests were instigated by Shia Iran. The report was criticized for not disclosing the names of individual abusers and extending accountability only to those who actively carried out human rights violations. By 2010, torture had become common and Bahrain's human rights record was described as "dismal" by Human Rights Watch. The Shia majority have long complained of what they call systemic discrimination. They accuse the government of naturalizing Sunnis from neighboring countries and gerrymandering electoral districts. The protest in Bahrain are still continuing and people are still protesting since 2011. Unlike Syria the Bahrainis have not picked up weapons to fight the government. But protests have been mainly peaceful. Although the government has been harsh on the protesters even calling in Saudi special units to keep the protesters down. Mostly youths have than chosen to protest in a less peaceful way by trowing rocks, Molotov cocktails, attacking police stations and closing roads by burning tires etc. Thousands of protesters have been arrested in the harsh crackdown by the government many have been sentenced long sentences which violate human right laws.

• published: 08 Nov 2013
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