He was detained during Ramadan. Eight days later, his family collected his body.

Persian Gulf states have cracked down on their residents amid conflict in Iran, human rights experts say, conducting arbitrary arrests and targeting people who have posted video on social media. Atta Kenare / AFP via Getty Images fileSecurityHe was detained during Ramadan. Eight days later, his family collected his body.Crackdowns in Persian Gulf countries have chilled speech and limited the open-source evidence available to investigators tracking the conflict. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00ShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 17, 2026, 5:00 AM EDTBy Jane LytvynenkoSayed Mohammed Al-Mousawi disappeared in Bahrain after leaving a shisha cafe where he broke his Ramadan fast with his cousin and a friend. It was past midnight, in the early hours of March 19. Eight days later, his family received a call to collect his corpse.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Images of Al-Mousawi’s body covered in bruises and lesions on his face, feet and torso filled social media feeds.“The entire body, sir, cannot be described as intact,” a family member said in a statement to human rights investigators shared with NBC News. “It was severely disfigured.”The images ignited a torrent of confusion and outrage at Bahraini authorities and calls for an investigation. The exact circumstances around Al-Mousawi’s detention remain unclear, but his killing has become a flash point in a wider crackdown across the Persian Gulf in the shadow of the U.S. war on Iran, human rights groups say, in which authorities have made arrests under uncertain circumstances and targeted individuals over social media posts.Hundreds have been arrested in countries across the Gulf region, according to the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, some on allegations of expressing sympathies for Iran’s attacks and for posting images of Iranian bombardments to social media. Often, those arrested are accused of espionage and are...