DUBAI (Reuters) – Shi’ite youths chanting slogans against Bahrain’s royal family clashed with riot police across the Gulf island kingdom yesterday, trying to block highways in a second day of protests, residents said.
“Death to Al-Khalifa, Death to Al-Saud,” protesters shouted, also targeting the Saudi ruling family, as they were chased backed into mostly Shi’ite Muslim villages by police who fired teargas, the residents said.
“The protests are not as big as the demonstrations on Friday. Police are focusing on trying to force protesters back into villages,” one resident told Reuters.
Activists said in Twitter messages that a youth died after being injured in clashes in Sitra village. There was no immediate report on state media about the incident.
Inspired by “Arab Spring” uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, thousands of mainly Shi’ite Bahrainis took to the streets in February and March demanding curbs on the power of the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa family and an end to perceived discrimination. The broader pro-democracy movement was suppressed with the help of military forces brought in from neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But small, low-level protests have persisted on an almost daily basis. Authorities said yesterday they had arrested an unspecified number of “saboteurs” for throwing petrol bombs at police during a protest on Friday in the village of Nuwaidrat, near Sitra, south of the capital Manama, the state news agency BNA reported.
In November, a government-appointed commission of international jurists found evidence of systematic abuses against detained protesters.
The government has promised to implement the report’s recommendations, which the US Congress has linked to its approval of a $53 million arms sale to Western-allied Manama.
Bahrain has set up a body to implement the recommendations, including stopping rights abuses and punishing those responsible as well as retraining police and security forces. But opposition groups have cast doubt on the authorities’ commitment to reform.
