Bahraini authorities admitted its security forces were still detaining 20 women for holding protests against the regime.

Bahraini authorities admitted its security forces were still detaining 20 women for holding protests against the regime.

Last Saturday, Al-Khalifa regime arrested 45 women and girls after they took to streets in protest of recent controversial parliamentary by-elections.

For its part, Amnesty International on Monday said the females had been tortured and denied legal representation.
"They were apprehended without lawyers present and some of them reportedly tortured or otherwise ill-treated," the London-based advocacy group said in a statement late on Monday.
The Bahraini authorities have "patently denied these women and girls their rights after rounding them up at a Manama shopping centre," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.

The by-elections took place on Saturday after a leading opposition group withdrew its 18 members of Parliament following a brutal crackdown on protesters last February.
The Kingdom witnessed peaceful anti-government rallies since mid-February, demanding an end to the Al Khalifa's over-40-year-long rule over the Persian Gulf Island.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds more arrested in a brutal Manama-ordered and Riyadh-backed crackdown in the country, which hosts a huge American military installation for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

In another development, Bahrain's Military Prosecutor-General Yussef Fleilfal announced on Monday that the sheikhdom's military court had sentenced another 32 people to 15 years in prison for participating in pro-democracy demonstrations earlier this year.