Police on Tuesday lifted a siege of the newspaper al-Ayyam, after 24 hours of clashes between security forces and the newspaper’s own armed guards. Sources contacted by Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said that two people were killed in the confrontation, one newspaper guard and one member of the security forces. Seven more were injured.
Witnesses said that a guard mortally wounded a police officer and injured another, but this version of events was denied by the editor, Hisham Bashraheel, who said that police had deliberately fired on their own colleagues to make it appear as if demonstrators – who had rallied outside the banned newspaper to hold a solidarity ‘sit-in’ – had been armed.
Shooting that began Monday resumed Tuesday morning and one guard was reportedly killed. Six were apparently then injured among both the security forces and the guards.
Around 30 people gave themselves up at the start of the afternoon Tuesday, including the editor’s son, Mohammed Hisham Bashraheel, after negotiations between the security forces and the daily paper’s management.
