Citizen journalist reportedly assaulted by police, pictures deleted

Said Yousif Almuhafda, Head of Monitoring at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, reports on Twitter about an attack against citizen journalist Nader AbdulEmam:

I just talked with blogger @NaderAbdulEmam who was taking pictures as usual when Riot Police stopped him in Jidhafs.

@NaderAbdulEmam stated that Riot Police beat and punched him and cursed him for only taking pictures in one of the villages!

Then he was taken to a checkpoint to see if he’s wanted, they deleted pics from his phone & threatened him with arrest if he took pics again

Our prayers with Formula 1 journalists that they don’t get beaten by Riot police while filming the race like @NaderAbdulEmam

This incident comes 24 hours after a Bahraini journalist and British news team were stopped at a police checkpoint and taken to a police station.

Yesterday, Reporters Without Borders launched a campaign in advance of the F1, titled: “Don’t Leave News Out of the Race” which aims “to draw attention to the government policy of orchestrating disinformation about Bahrain’s street protests and the ensuing crackdown, and to the way news and information have been the crackdown’s collateral victims.”

Sayed Yousif also reports that “27 people were arrested yesterday”. (See also this post on yesterdays arrest of 4 children from Bani Jamra.)

Cartoon of police beating becomes reality in Sanad today

Said Yousif Almuhafda, head of monitoring at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, reported earlier that a “young protester” had been “beaten by riot police” this morning in Sanad. Said Yousif shared this picture of the beating:

A video was later uploaded by activists which reportedly shows him being arrested.

Lilly, an activist on Twitter who tweets as @iBitss, observed that the image was very reminiscent of a very popular anti-F1 cartoon drawn by Carlos Latuff last year. Lilly tweeted: “From a cartoon sketch to reality: a guy getting beaten after getting arrested. Welcome to Bahrain F1 Grandprix”.