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Bahrain welcomes back F1 amid security crunch

April 22, 2012 RSS Feed Print

Race drivers have mostly kept quiet about the controversy surrounding the Bahrain Grand Prix. Asked about Musa's death after taking pole position in Saturday's qualifier, Vettel said: "I think it's always dreadful if someone dies."

The hacker group Anonymous, which last week took down the official Formula One website in protest over the race, on Sunday posted what it said was personal data about dozens of race ticket holders stolen from Formula One servers.

The spectator information was partially redacted before being posted. It included customers' last names, and partial phone numbers and email addresses. The authenticity of the information could not immediately be verified.

In a statement posted online, the hacker group threatened further attacks should any harm come to hunger strike Abdulhadi al-Khawaja or his family, saying, "Anonymous will respond with fury and rage the likes of which have never been seen."

The group criticized the Bahraini government for what it said was "an attempt to conceal the oppression it is committing against its own people." It also blasted Formula One for supporting the government's hosting of the race, saying revenues generated are being used to buy tear gas and ammunition used against demonstrators.

Anonymous last week took responsibility for a denial-of-service attack against the official Formula One website and another site, F1-racers.net.

Denial-of-service attacks work by flooding a website with traffic.

As the race got under way, the official Formula One site was operating as normal. However, the content of F1-racers.net was replaced with a video clip showing footage of Bahraini police clashing with protesters and an apparently new message that included Sunday's date and the list of hacked ticket information.

Bahrain was the first Middle Eastern country to welcome F1 in 2004. Members of the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty are huge fans of the sport and the country's sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, owns 50 percent of leading team McLaren.

The rulers billed the F1 race as an event that will put the divided society on the path of reconciliation. They vowed zero tolerance for unrest and repeatedly warned the opposition against sabotaging Bahrain's racing weekend, which generally draws thousands of spectators to the island and millions of television viewers.

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Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. AP Business Writer Adam Schreck in Dubai also contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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