Police and military crackdown on Bahrain protesters
The Bahrain government has engaged protesters in the capital Manama, in a major crackdown which has brought death and destruction.
The military has banned all protests. Late Thursday scores of army tanks and armoured personnel carriers were pouring on to the streets of Manama. Check-points surrounded by barbed were were being erected.
Around 3am Thursday in Pearl Square in the centre of the city where protesters had retired and were sleeping in tents, police carried out a well planned ambush using tear gas, percussion grenades and rubber bullets in what most media are branding "a heavy-handed crackdown."
Police stormed and opened fire on sleeping protesters, killing at least three, and injuring 231, according to Faisal Ben Yacoub Al Hamar, the health minister, who was interviewed on Bahrain TV. Helicopters swirled around overhead adding to the terror of the protesters who had been peacefully demonstrating.
"We are even angrier now. They think they can clamp down on us, but they have made us angrier," Makki Abu Taki, whose son died in the pre-dawn attack, yelled in the hospital morgue. "We will take to the streets in larger numbers and honor our martyrs. The time for Al Khalifa has ended."
The attack has brought international condemnation with UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon describing the Bahrain government's actions as "deeply troubling."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. was, "deeply concerned at the action of the security forces."
"The Bahraini authorities have again reacted to legitimate protest by using deadly force. They must end their continuing crackdown on activists calling for reform," Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director said Thursday.
"They must also carry out a full, impartial investigation into the force used this morning against peaceful protesters, including families with children, and whether the use of deadly force was justified.
"If not, those who gave the orders and used excessive force must be brought to justice."
The tiny kingdom of Bahrain, sandwiched between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, has a population of little more a million people, 60% of which are ex-pats.
Bahrain hosts the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet and is a major regional financial centre.
Young Bahrainis are disenchanted with the government and want it to resign. While the elite in the country are prospering from a real estate boom engulfing the kingdom, ordinary Bahrainis are struggling to get jobs.
Protests have been a way of life in Bahrain for nearly trenty years. Violence however has been rare. Last year Bahraini authorities arrested around twenty people who were agitating for change. They were accused of plotting to overthrow the government and were charged with a number of counts including several for terrorism.
Ruled by the Khalifa family since the 18th century, but for the time it was colonised by the British, Bahrain has undergone some democratic reforms, however they are largely cosmetic. Sunni Muslim have long been at logger-heads Shi'ite majority, which comprises around 70% of the Bahraini population.
In 2001, a national referendum approved the establishment of a national charter which was to pave the way to a more tangible democracy. However a year later, the then-Emir of Bahrain imposed a constitution by decree and cemented his family's rule by converting the nation to a kingdom.
Source: Middle East News.Net
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