A SPELL in prison has become the rule rather than the exception for the Khawajas. On August 29th Maryam al-Khawaja, a prominent activist, became the third member of the family to be detained by Bahrain’s government in the past twelve months for campaigning for rights. Ms Khawaja (pictured), a dual Bahraini-Danish citizen and co-director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), which has offices in Beirut and Copenhagen, was picked up at Manama airport as she arrived to try to visit her father, veteran prisoner-of-conscience Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. He has been in prison since 2011 and is ill from his ongoing hunger strike. Ms Khawaja’s lawyer, who has been denied contact with the 27-year-old, says she has been stripped of her nationality and transferred to a women’s prison pending further questioning. Charges may relate to Ms Khawaja’s campaign for Bahrain’s torturers to be brought to justice, assaulting a police officer during her arrest and “insulting the king”—an offence that carries a sentence of up to seven years in jail. The Bahraini authorities were not immediately available to comment on Ms Khawaja's arrest and their representatives in Britain have not responded to her detention. Nabeel Rajab, Bahrain's most prominent rights campaigner who was released in May after a two-year sentence for participating in “illegal gatherings” during mass demonstrations of 2011, says he is worried that "Bahrain’s whole human rights movement will be put behind bars". Maryam’s young sister, Zainab, was herself released on bail in February after almost a year’s detention on similar charges. Now seven months pregnant, she will face trial again in October and, if sentenced, could end up giving birth in prison.

Bahrain’s authorities are due to report to the Human Rights Council, a UN body in Geneva, on the progress they have made on recommendations for reform made in wake of 2011, when over 40 protesters were killed. Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby, says the tiny Gulf nation has increased its use of arbitrary detention, ill treatment and torture of dissidents, including juveniles, over the past year.

The lobby says the climate of “international impunity” is partly to blame. Western governments are accused of ignoring repression in Bahrain, and other Gulf states, thanks to business and security interests in Saudi Arabia, the region's heavyweight and patron of Bahrain. Bahrain is home to an important American naval base, for example. British and European companies have been criticised for doing PR and surveillance for Bahrain’s rulers.

Bahrain's activists have lashed out at Britain in particular (unlike Denmark which is said to be working to release Ms Khawaja). Ms Khawaja accused the British government of cooperating with Bahrain when she was blocked from boarding a British Airways flight from Copenhagen to Bahrain in 2013. Mr Rajab likewise claims to have been treated “like a criminal” by British authorities when he was detained on arrival from Bahrain at Heathrow in May. Britain's foreign service says on its Facebook page that it is monitoring the situation and trying to foster “best practice”.