Bahrain police ‘suppress protest’ warm up for Grand Prix

Bahrain police ‘suppress protest’
Eyewitnesses say police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters marching in capital, Manama.
Last Modified: 03 Jun 2011 16:21

Anti-government protests took place around the country after emergency laws were lifted on Wednesday [EPA]

Bahraini police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters marching against the government near the capital Manama, eyewitnesses say.

The crackdown on Friday came just two days after the tiny Gulf kingdom’s authorities lifted emergency rule.

The protesters in Manama were marching adjacent to the city’s Pearl Roundabout, which was the epicentre of weeks of protests against the kingdom’s Sunni rulers, with demonstrators in particular demanding more rights for the island nation’s majority Shia population.

There were no immediate reports of injuries during the protests, the eyewitnesses said. They spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals.

Witnesses said that police fired tear gas at a crowd of hundreds of people who had gathered to mourn Zainab Altajer, who died on Thursday. Opposition activists said she died as a result of exposure to tear gas, but the government said her death was due to natural causes.

This video, uploaded to YouTube by user Bhtv100, appears to show the security forces’ crackdown on protesters in Sanabis on Friday. Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the footage, as the Bahraini government has barred journalists
from entering the country.

The protesters marched through the village of Sanabis, adjacent to the Pearl roundabout.

Also on Friday, hundreds of mourners gathered at a cemetery in Manama to bury Salman Abu Idris, a 63-year old protester who died in hospital earlier in the day of injuries from a demonstration in March, a witness told Al Jazeera.

Security forces had set up multiple checkpoints around the cemetery in Gudaibya, where they were checking the identities of those attempting to attend the funeral, and refused entry to “many”, the witness said.

He said that people at the funeral were “calm”, and while some in the crowd did raise slogans against the ruling al-Khalifa family at one point, “not many people chanted with them”.

He said some left after the funeral to protest at the slums near Bab al-Bahrain, but were stopped by security forces armed with tear gas and rubber bullets. It did not appear that security forces used these weapons in that confrontation, however. …more