The four American journalists arrested in Bahrain over the weekend while covering protests were charged and released Tuesday, authorities said, and will soon leave the little island kingdom.
Freelance reporter Anna Therese Day and three members of her camera crew were charged with illegally assembling with the intent to commit a crime, Bahraini prosecutors said. The reporters’ attorneyMohammed al-Jishi said the four are scheduled to leave Bahrain Tueday evening for a flight bound forDubai.
“While we believe the four should not have been held at all, we are grateful to the Bahraini authorities for facilitating their timely release,” the families of the four said in a joint statement.
It’s unclear if they will return to America soon and if they are expected to return to Bahrain for legal proceedings.
Police initially said the reporters — who were covering the fifth anniversary of Arab Spring uprisings — were arrested Sunday for providing “false information that they were tourists.” Bahrain requires reporters to obtain special media visas before entering the country for work.
Authorities also accused one journalist of joining street protesters to attack police.
Activists have accused Bahrain of constraining international journalists after the Arab Spring demonstrations.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said Bahrain has at least six other reporters being held for doing their jobs.
“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,” Sherif Mansour, the committee’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said in a statement.
Friends and colleagues of Day, an Idaho native, used the hashtags #freeanna and #journalismisnotacrime to rally support for her online. The three members of her crew have not been identified.
