This post is part of our special coverage of Bahrain Protests 2011/12 [1].
“The regime's crimes are done against all of us”, this is the message Bahraini netizens have tried to highlight with their daily hashtags on Twitter. The Bahrain Twittersphere can by itself be a case study in social media as they organize well, put all the information they have on this particular platform and try to raise awareness for human rights organizations and activists to take note and confront the regime with its crimes.
Last week, Bahraini activist in exile Maryam Al-Khawaja, posted a tweet to encourage tweeps in taking part in the hashtag #savebhkids [2] created to highlight crimes committed against children in Bahrain, whether by death, arrests, suffocation from tear gas, or by making them witness violations against their families.
Al Khawaja tweets:
@MARYAMALKHAWAJA [3]: Use hashtag #saveBHkids to write about what children in #bahrain have had to endure for the past year bcz of regime violence
[4]Children of AbdulRidha Buhamid who was killed by army on Feb 18, 2011. No investigation in his case and no compensation to his family. Photo credit: Bahrain Human Rights Centre
Twitter user Ba7rainiDXB adds:
@ba7rainiDXB [5]: Did u know that members of #Bahrain police are either bribing, threatening, or blackmailing kids to work as informants!!
And Sawsan Sultan drives the message home:
@SaWsan_SuLtaN [6]: My Brother was arrested yesterday, Beaten uP brutally & thrown on the street, i dont want that to haPpen again so .. #SavebhKids #Bahrain
Another Bahraini Twitter user posted this [Warning: Graphic] video [7] of crimes against Bahraini children:
@AmyBH2 [8]: 1st crime committed by the regime against children was the army attack2lulu while they were there
And yet another Twitter user shared a long detailed report [9] done by Bahrain Center for Human Rights on the violation against Bahraini children:
@zh0r [10]: 16 y/o child was kept as a hostage so that his father give himself up to the security forces #SaveBHKids #Bahrain http://t.co/P3Uk1Iz7 [9]
@AmyBH2 [11]: My 16 yrs old czn was beaten & covered by sand by mercenaries,he didn't document it 2 HRC bcz he thought it was normal
@Zzzzah [12]: [GRAPHIC PICTURE] yfrog.com/go3nvp [13]15 year old Ali Khamis was hit on Oct 7th, 2011 with a rubber bullet in the head by Hamad mercenaries
Another Bahraini Twitter user posted several pictures of Bahraini children suffocating from tear gas, which is fired at villages and towns where protests take place daily:
@ahmed_12: they are suffocating http://yfrog.com/mmbo1tzj [14] http://yfrog.com/es7ioxcj [15] http://yfrog.com/nvuydpuj [16]
This post is part of our special coverage of Bahrain Protests 2011/12 [1].