Bahraini authorities released on Sunday two former lawmakers and other detained activists arrested earlier in anti-government protests.

Bahraini authorities released on Sunday two former lawmakers and other detained activists arrested earlier in anti-government protests.

Ex-MPs Jawad Fairouz and Matar Ibrahim Matar, of the Al-Wefaq opposition party, said they were tortured by regime forces during detention.
"I am part of the peaceful opposition that will continue its legitimate demands for meaningful reforms,'' Matar told the AP news agency after his release.

Fairouz and Matar told British media that they were beaten up several times during more than two months in custody.
The two lawmakers were arrested in May after resigning from parliament in along with the rest of the Wefaq bloc in February following the government crackdown on anti-government protests.

Human rights lawyer Mohammed al-Tajer, detained in April, was also among those just released.

BRUTAL CRACKDOWN
Press TV quoted Maryam al-Khawaja of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) as saying that around 147 detainees were released by the authorities. She added that among the protesters freed was a 14-year-old boy.

The BCHR has expressed concerns about the condition of young detainees, stating that it has received reports that young boys are being placed in cells holding “drug-related prisoners.”

According to the BCHR, there are currently over 1,000 political detainees inside the country's prisons.

The government brutally crushed protests with the help of foreign troops from neighboring Gulf countries.
Scores of people have been killed and many more have been arrested and tortured in prisons in a government-sanctioned crackdown on peaceful protests since the beginning of demonstrations in Bahrain in February.

Emergency laws were lifted in June, but activists and witnesses have told the AP that riot police still existing in streets banning demonstrations.