Bahraini regime police brutalize worshippers, murder boy attending prayers

Bahraini Police Kill Teen Headed to Friday Prayers
10 November, 2012 – FARS

TEHRAN (FNA)- Authorities in Bahrain are being blamed for the death of a 16-year-old boy, as opposition supporters and human rights activists said police prevented people from attending Friday prayers by setting up checkpoints and firing tear gas at the crowds.

Ali Radhi reportedly tried to get to a mosque, and was then chased onto a highway where he was struck by a car and killed. According to activists, the boy’s family blamed the officers and the police barricades for their son’s death, RT reported.

The security measures kept many people from attending the Friday prayers of Sheik Isa Qassim, who denounced Bahrain’s move earlier this week to revoke the citizenship of 31 activists and lawyers.

“The revoking of citizenship from honorable people is aimed at punishing those who have opposition views,” he told worshippers who managed to reach his mosque in the Diraz village. The town is a district outside the capital of Manama.

According to Bahraini human rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja, worshippers prayed on the streets after they realized they won’t be able to enter the mosque. Several people attempted to scale the walls in order to avoid the security blockade.

Al-Khawaja also tweeted a photo of the young boy who was killed on the highway, as well as his family preparing for his funeral. She also wrote that police were preventing outraged Bahrainis from attending the burial.

Al-Wefaq, the largest political party in Bahrain, posted pictures of people taking to the streets to protest the death of the 16-year-old on its Twitter account.

The party also posted graphic images of a different boy, suffering from a wounded leg after being hit by a tear gas canister. An elderly man can also be seen suffering after allegedly being suffocated by tear gas.

The violence continues to mount. A Youtube video posted yesterday shows several Bahraini officers kicking, hitting, and dragging a civilian from a cemetery before forcing him into a police car.

Patrick Henningsen, a geopolitical analyst for current affairs website UK Column, said that the Bahraini leadership is now effectively tightening the screws on those who dare to speak against it.

“This is an unprecedented move by the government – the violations have been chalking up left right and center for the last year … Only last week there was a double bombing in the neighborhood, and that was blamed on pro-reformers or terrorists, according to the government, but little evidence has been presented to show it was done by these people. And what it has done, is it’s given the government carte blanche to really crack down on the pro-reform movements …”

Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February 2011, calling for an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty’s over-40-year rule, end of discrimination, establishment of justice and a democratically-elected government as well as freedom of detained protesters.

Violence against the defenseless people escalated after a Saudi-led conglomerate of police, security and military forces from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member states – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar – were dispatched to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom on March 13, 2011, to help Manama crack down on peaceful protestors.

So far, tens of people have been killed, hundreds have gone missing and thousands of others have been injured. …source