Bahrain Interview: The Life and Death of 16-Year-Old Hussam AlHaddad
Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 8:59 | Josh Shahryar in EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
His cousin thought he had a bright future ahead of him. His entire family thought so. He knew it.
That future is now gone. Instead Hussam AlHaddad is in a graveyard in Muharraq, leaving everyone to wonder how a life so precious could be lost.
Shock is perhaps the first word that one hears when speaking to Hussam's family about his death. What's gripped them is a profound sense of helplessness at how quickly fate turned on him --- on Friday, 17 August, his body was carried onto an ambulance in Muharraq, after he was hit by shotgun pellets and then allegedly kicked and beaten up on the street by more than half a dozen men.
According to authorities, Hussam was a masked "rioter", involved in a "terror act" which put the lives and safety of Bahraini security forces at risk by throwing Molotov bombs at them. His cousin, Hussein AlHaddad, differs.