Attempted murder of newspaper editor

The editor of the daily Al-Watan, Mahnad Abu Zeiytoun, was attacked and stabbed by two masked men as he left the newspaper’s offices near the capital, Manama, at around 3 a.m. yesterday. After asking him if he worked for Al-Watan, they tried to stab him in the face and heart but missed their targets. They set fire to his car with Molotov cocktails before fleeing. Zeiytoun was rushed to hospital with injuries to the right arm and various parts of the body. “Squeezed between the security services on the one hand and radical groups on the other, the space for the press freedom is shrinking in Bahrain,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The kingdom’s authorities need to assure the safety of journalists in accordance with its constitution and the international treaties it has signed. Every effort must be made to shed light on this murder attempt.” Blogger and human rights activist Abdeljalil Al-Singace, who was arrested on 13 August on returning from a seminar in London on the worsening human rights situation in Bahrain, is meanwhile still being held in an unknown location. His family has still not received any word of him and his lawyers have not been able to contact him. His arrest was followed by the arrests of seven other Shiite citizens between 15 and 17 August for allegedly organising a network aimed at destabilising the kingdom (http://en.rsf.org/bahrein-unacceptable-arrests-of-human-20-08-2010,38186.html). Reporters Without Borders reiterates its appeal to the authorities to free Al-Singace and the other activists without delay.