Dubai: A Bahrain court on Wednesday lifted a travel ban on a prominent activist charged with assaulting airport police as she flew in to try to visit her jailed father, a judicial source said.
Mariam Al Khawaja has been a vocal critic of the Bahrain authorities’ crackdown on 2011 protests that led to her opposition leader father Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja being jailed for life.
She was arrested on arrival at the airport on August 30 and charged with assaulting two policewomen.
She denies the charge, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, and counters that she was attacked by police.
The travel ban was imposed when she was granted bail on September 18.
The court accepted her lawyer’s request that it be lifted taking into consideration her work commitments abroad, the judicial source said.
Mariam, who heads the Beirut-based Gulf Centre for Human Rights and — like her father — has Danish citizenship, has been a familiar figure in Washington, regularly meeting members of Congress and administration officials.
In 2011, she testified as a witness at a congressional hearing on Bahrain.
Her father was jailed for life following Shiite-led protests that year against the Bahraini government.
