Protest by relatives rioters in Bahrain

Some 50 persons demonstrated on Wednesday with the majority of them women of the families of the Bahraini youths who were sentenced over acts of riots in Bahrain for the new year celebration and gathered in front of the ministry of Justice in Manama in protest of these sentences.

The families of the prisoners who organized a silent demonstration considered that their children were "victims of such acts." Several members of the families of the convicted persons said their children did not take part in the acts of riots and confessions were taken from them under tortures.

The Bahraini court on Monday and Tuesday sentenced for one and two years imprisonment 13 youths aging between 16 and 20 year old, while it found one Pakistani as not guilty.

According to the Bahraini ministry of the interior some 55 persons were arrested and accused of being involved in the incidents in which 17 persons, three of them are policemen were wounded, 135 cars damaged and fronts of seven hotels and two restaurants were destroyed.

Large number of Saudis and neighboring Gulf citizens used to spend the new year celebrations in Bahrain where alcohol sales and consumption is permitted.