Four Americans recently arrested in Bahrain on suspicion of participating in an illegal gathering have been charged, but also have been ordered released from custody while the matter is investigated further, the office of the Persian Gulf country’s public prosecutor said Tuesday.
Bahrain officials earlier said that some of the arrested Americans were journalists and that one of them was accused of “participating in attacks on police” with protesters over the weekend on the island nation off the coasts of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The family of one of those arrested released a statement, identifying one of the journalists as Anna Therese Day. The other three Americans were not identified.
The four were charged with participating in an illegal gathering with the aim of committing crimes and disrupting public security, as well as endangering means of transportation, the prosecutor’s office said Tuesday on its Instagram account.
Details of the extent of the Americans’ freedom stemming from their ordered release from custody weren’t immediately available.
Sunday demonstration
Details of what the four are accused of doing also have been sparse. Bahrain police said the four used false information to enter the country, and at least one was accused of concealing his or her face “with a cloth and participating in attacks on police alongside other rioters in Sitra” on Sunday.
The demonstration in Sitra was among those marking the fifth anniversary of Bahrain’s 2011 uprising.
Bahrain is a small island nation with a predominantly Shiite population ruled by a Sunni minority. Sitra is a predominantly Shiite neighborhood south of the capital, Manama, known for sporadic protests since the 2011 pro-reform movement inspired by the Arab Spring.
Bahrain police said they dispersed the rioters in accordance with Bahraini law.
All four Americans entered the country between Thursday and Friday, providing false information that they were tourists, the Bahrain Interior Ministry said.
Day’s family said she “and her crew are committed journalists who only want to ensure they could undertake their profession ethically and thoroughly.”
“The allegation that they were in any way involved in illegal behavior or anything other than journalistic activities is impossible,” the family said in a prepared statement.
“Anna Day is much loved and missed and we are concerned about her well-being as well as that of her three American colleagues,” the statement read.
Day, who has done freelance work for CNN in the past, has reported for various media outlets, including The New York Times, Al Jazeera English and CBS.
The U.S. Embassy in Bahrain said it was “aware of the arrest of four U.S. citizens in Bahrain” on Sunday but provided no further comment because of privacy concerns.
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least six other journalists are in prison in Bahrain in connection with their work.
“It is sad that the fifth anniversary of the protests is marked by the arrest of yet more journalists in Bahrain, which has since become one of the worst jailers of journalists in the Arab world,” said Sherif Mansour, the committee’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “We call for the immediate release of the four journalists arrested today and all other journalists who have been imprisoned over the past five years.”