Bahrainis hold sit-in protest outside Labor Ministry

A group of Bahraini workers have staged a sit-in protest to show their anger at the government’s decision to dismiss them from their jobs for political reasons.

Holding placards, the protesters gathered on Wednesday outside the Labor Ministry building in Isa Town, south of Manama.

They said they have been forced to leave their jobs as part of a revenge campaign launched by state agencies to punish them for participating in rallies against the ruling Al Khalifa regime.

Some of the protesters said their living conditions are getting worse because they have been unemployed over the past three years.

Many employees were either dismissed or indefinitely suspended from their jobs in the wake of a brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests that erupted in early 2011.

The popular revolution in Bahrain has seen numerous demonstrations in different parts of the island nation demanding the Al Khalifa royal family to step down.

On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government to quell the peaceful protests.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in the Saudi-backed crackdown.

Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.