Women join Bahrain's uprising.

• Author: Marlowe, Jen

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A WOMAN I CALL M STRODE own the main road of her village in a burqa, with a large red and white Bahraini flag wrapped around her shoulders, fluttering vigorously in the breeze. She carried a poster, which she allowed me to look at. It had four small plastic dolls glued to the surface. One doll, wrapped in a white shroud, lay inside a small yellow box. Two other dolls had black hoods covering their heads and faces. One of the hooded dolls hung from its feet. The other's arms were bound behind its back. The fourth plastic doll was imprisoned behind strips of black tape and was next to some rubber bullets and a small plastic cylinder.

"They kill our children," she explained, referring to the kingdom's security forces. "They suffocate them. They use all kinds of weapons." Her hand swept over the rubber bullets and the cylinder, which represented a tear gas canister. The bound and hooded dolls in stress positions didn't require much interpretation, but she emphasized how commonly both male and female youth are tortured in Bahrain's prisons.

Then M. flipped the poster over, revealing three black cutout figures hanging from nooses with paper bags over their heads. "We won't accept anything but a death sentence," was written in Arabic in black marker across the top. The effigies were identified with signs on their torsos: Salman, Khalifa, and Hamad, the crown prince, prime minister, and king of Bahrain, respectively.

"Hang them," she insisted.

I had arrived in Bahrain five days earlier through Witness Bahrain, an initiative comprised of international observers reporting on the human rights abuses that the Bahraini regime has committed since many of its citizens began protesting eighteen months ago.

On February 14,2011, inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, a group of anonymous youth put out a call to gather at the Pearl Roundabout monument in Bahrain's capital city of Manama. Protesters were largely calling for political reforms, with a focus on instituting a constitutional monarchy and challenging the discrimination that the Shi'a majority faces at the hands of the Sunni monarchy.

The regime responded with violence, killing one protester. The demonstrations swelled, and the security forces responded with more violence. Demonstrators took over, were violently expelled from, and then returned to Pearl Roundabout, camping there until 1,500 troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates entered Bahrain, shoring up the...