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| Arabia | ||
| Bahrain police 'suppress protest' | ||
| 2011-06-04 | ||
| [Al Jazeera] 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.
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. 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 Jizz. 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 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. The witness was speaking to Al Jizz on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals from the authorities. | ||
| Posted by:Fred |