This post is part of our special coverage of Bahrain Protests 2011.

Shortly after 3am local time, prominent Bahraini blogger Mahmood al-Yousif was arrested in his home. Before leaving with police officers, the blogger tweeted:

Police here for me

Al-Yousif is an influential blogger whose writings of late have been in favor of unifying Bahrainis. On March 15, he wrote:

[I] choose to come back [to Bahrain] to continue to espouse sanity and tolerance. To continue to try to show people that regardless of their beliefs, status or wealth, our destinies as Bahrainis are intertwined and it behoves us to find equitable ways to live together and ameliorate our differences. I don’t want to point fingers nor am interested in apportioning further blame. I favor the recognition of the root causes of this strife in order to move on, no matter how painful that exercise may be.

Al-Yousif has long been the administrator of a site called JustBahraini, a unity campaign against sectarianism. He wrote recently of a campaign supporter being threatened by police.

His arrest was confirmed by his brother, as well as his son, who tweeted:

Police just came to my house and arrested my father, Mahmood Al-Yousif. @BahrainRights @OnlineBahrain

This post is part of our special coverage of Bahrain Protests 2011.