Bahrain: Brutal, Unjust and Clock that is running out...tic tic tic toc

Bahrain must investigate more than a dozen deaths that followed the use of tear gas by security forces, rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday after the Gulf kingdom reported that a man had died while in custody.

Protests in Bahrain appear to have picked up recently despite the findings released in November of a government-backed  commission established to investigate abuses by the government and security forces, Mariwan Hama-Saeed of Human Rights Watch says.

"We were expecting (the government) just to ease up on these people, but since this report was published we've seen crackdowns every day," he says.

Reuters reported that Bahrain's Interior Ministry said that a man detained by police over "acts of sabotage" died in the hospital, without elaborating on the cause of death.

According to Amnesty, a Bahraini human rights group has reported at least 13 deaths resulting from the security forces' use of tear gas against peaceful protesters as well as inside people's homes with a rise in such deaths in recent months.

A 20-year-old was seriously injured and hospitalized after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister launched by riot police, the group said. Amnesty went on to document a series of incidents that allegedly showed how tear gas had been used improperly, including against women, children and the elderly.