Bahraini forces had re-arrested a prominent human rights activist Zainab Khawaja during a protest staged over the regime’s refusal to hand over the body of a martyr killed by security forces earlier this month.

Bahraini forces had re-arrested a prominent human rights activist Zainab Khawaja during a protest staged over the regime’s refusal to hand over the body of a martyr killed by security forces earlier this month.

Khawaja was reportedly arrested by the Saudi-backed forces at a demonstration held in capital Manama on Wednesday.

Similar protests were also held in the villages of Diraz and Dar Kulaib, and the town of Sanad.
Al-Khalifa regime has refused to hand over the body of Mahmoud Issa al-Jaziri, an anti-regime activist killed at a demonstration in mid-February.

Jaziri was hit in the head by a tear gas canister on February 14 after security forces attacked anti-regime demonstrators in Nabi Saleh, south of Manama, as they were marking the second anniversary of the uprising.

Zainab’s father is Abdulhadi Khawaja, former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, and former director of the Middle East-North Africa region for the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders' Front Line. He has been in the Saudi-backed regime’s jail for months.

Zainab was repeatedly arrested by security forces for protests against her father's ongoing detention.
Following her last arrest in April 2012, Amnesty International called for her immediate and unconditional release, stating that she had been "detained solely for exercising her rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, and urging her immediate and unconditional release".

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.