Bahrain arrests 6 opposition leaders after crackdown
BayBak, Azerbaijan | 797 days ago | Thursday, 17th March , 2011 , 15:42 [pm] | International
Bahrain arrested six prominent dissidents on Thursday as it came under mounting diplomatic pressure to end a bloody crackdown on Shiite-led protesters which has alarmed its ally the United States and infuriated Iran.
Shiite activists and one Sunni were rounded up during the night, a parliamentarian from the Shiite opposition alliance said, after a day of [...]
Bahrain arrested six prominent dissidents on Thursday as it came under mounting diplomatic pressure to end a bloody crackdown on Shiite-led protesters which has alarmed its ally the United States and infuriated Iran.
Shiite activists and one Sunni were rounded up during the night, a parliamentarian from the Shiite opposition alliance said, after a day of violence which left five dead in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
“They were arrested in the night,” Khalil Marzouk, deputy leader of the Al-Wefaq opposition movement, told AFP.
Among those arrested was Hassan Mashaima, a leader of the hardline Shiite Haq group which is seeking to overthrow the Sunni monarchy that has ruled the Shiite-majority island state for 230 years.
Mashaima only returned to Manama from abroad on February 26 after terrorism charges against him were dropped as part of an earlier peace offering from the government to the opposition.
Human rights activist and Haq member Abduljalil al-Singace, who was released in February after six months in jail, was also detained, the opposition said. The government has not confirmed the arrests.
Police fire shotgunsMeanwhile, Bahraini police fired shotguns and tear gas Thursday to disperse a protest in the Shiite village of Deih, west of Manama, a local rights activist said.
Several hundred protesters rallied in the village before security forces opened fire, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights chief Nabeel Rajab said.
An AFP journalist saw riot police stationed at the entrance to Deih firing tear gas. Several military vehicles full of police blocked the road leading from the village of Jidhafs to Deih, he said.
Shiite demonstrators have retreated to their neighborhoods and villages near the capital after security forces on Wednesday crushed a month-old anti-regime protest at Manama’s Pearl Square, killing three protesters.
Roads to Shiite villages around the capital are reportedly blocked by security forces.
All protests and gatherings are forbidden under state-of-emergency laws decreed by the authorities in the Sunni-ruled country on Tuesday.
Bahraini forces also used tanks and helicopters to drive protesters off the streets and clear a camp that had become a symbol of their demand for more democratic rights in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
Three police and three protesters died in the crackdown.
The crackdown prompted sympathy protests from Shiites across the region and analysts said it might provoke a response from Iran, which supports Shiite groups in Iraq and Lebanon.
Pearl roundabout was a scene of devastation. Some tattered tents remained on the grass as diggers uprooted palm trees that surrounded the pearl statue where activists had been celebrating into the night only days before.
Troops were only allowing residents in and a long line of cars was backed up behind a checkpoint, waving through drivers heading to work in the financial district, where the protesters had tried to extend their sit-in early this week.
The military on Wednesday banned all protests and imposed a curfew from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. across a large swathe of Manama.
Bank branches and coffee shops in the commercial district prepared to open. “It’s back to normal, I can see traffic on King Faisal Highway. We drove all the way to work,” said a bank employee.
US stance
Washington’s position appeared ambiguous.
Earlier this week, Washington said it understood why Bahrain’s Sunni rulers had called in reinforcements. But on Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said force was not the answer.
“We find what’s happening in Bahrain alarming. We think that there is no security answer to the aspirations and demands of the demonstrators,” she told CBS. “They are on the wrong track.”
A medical source said dozens of people were taken to Bahrain International Hospital on Wednesday, hit by rubber bullets or shotgun pellets or suffering teargas inhalation — all weapons used by riot police. One was hit by a live bullet.
Protesters threw rocks and petrol bombs at police who were clearing the protest camp and killed three by running them over in cars at high speed, witnesses and medical sources said.
U.S. President Barack Obama called the kings of Saudi Arabia, a strategic ally of Washington in the Middle East, and of Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and seen as a bulwark against Iranian influence, to urge “maximum” restraint.
But the violence appeared to dash hopes for political talks Washington hopes will take place.
Iraq’s, Lebanon’s Shiites
Over 60 percent of Bahrainis are Shiites. Most say they want only the same treatment as Sunnis and a constitutional monarchy but calls by hardliners for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed Sunnis, who fear the unrest serves Iran.
Analysts say the intervention of Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states in Bahrain might provoke a response from Tehran, which supports Shiite groups in Iraq and Lebanon.
“This was a major and a dangerous decision because this issue has been internationalized now. There are protests in Iraq, in Iran, in Lebanon,” Wefaq MP Jasim Hussein said.
A local Iraqi official says thousands of Shiites are rallying in the holy city of Karbala against troops sent from Sunni Arab states to Bahrain to help the tiny island’s Sunni monarchy deal with Shiite-led opposition protesters.
Karbala provincial councilman Hussein Shadhan al-Aboudi says about 3,000 people gathered Thursday on the clearing between the city’s two Shiite holy shrines. He says larger demonstrations in Baghdad and Shiite-dominated cities in Iraq’s south are planned for after Friday prayers.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said he fears that anti-riot Saudi and United Arab Emirates forces deployed in Bahrain will inflame sectarian violence in the Mideast.
Two prominent Iraqi Shiite clerics have criticized Bahrain’s crackdown against protesters. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also called for protests.
In Lebanon, supporters of Shiite group Hezbollah came out in solidarity with their fellow Shia. And Iran condemned Bahrain’s response to the protests, recalling its ambassador for consultations. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the crackdown was “unjustifiable”.alarabiya
, Voice of a Nation[1] Print
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