DUBAI: A Bahraini appeals court yesterday upheld a controversial 10-year-jail term against a photojournalist convicted over his presence at a 2012 attack on a police station.
Human rights watchdogs say Ahmed Humaidan was merely covering pro-democracy protests that erupted in the kingdom in early 2011.
But the appeal judges confirmed the sentence handed down by a lower court on March 26, a judicial source said. The 25-year-old photojournalist, who was in court for the appeal ruling, was convicted of attacking the police station in the Shia village of Sitra, outside the capital on April 8, 2012. Humaidan was part of a group of 29 Shias, tried together from February 12, 2013 for attacking the police station with Molotov cocktails and other improvised explosives.
Twenty-six of them, including Humaidan, were jailed for 10 years and three were jailed for three years.
Press watchdogs, including Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, have urged Bahraini authorities to release Humaidan and dismiss the charges against him.
AFP
