Thursday, February 16, 2012

Bahrain, We Hardly Knew Ye

It just began, and now it is over.  Yesterday morning, I was sitting in a café in Manama, Bahrain, working on a blog called “Bahrain: First Impressions.”  Now I am sitting at home in Oakland, trying to process what happened.

On February 14, I woke after only a couple hours’ sleep and couldn’t go back to sleep.  I was trembling with excitement and tension.  #Feb14, the anniversary of the start of the ongoing revolution in Bahrain, was to be the Day of Return to Pearl (Lulu) Roundabout, the huge vacant lot in the center of Manama where protesters camped out for a month last year, until March 16, when 1,000 troops from across the bridge in Saudi Arabia and 500 police from the United Arab Emirates joined thousands of mercenaries working for the Bahraini police in evacuating the camp, destroying the monument at the center of the Roundabout, killing at least 6 and injuring hundreds.  Since then, at least 60 people have died in the ongoing revolution.


Read the story of my arrest and deportation from Bahrain on the Witness Bahrain blog.

Read the BBC account of what happened on the anniversary.


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