NOVANEWS
A march on the US Embassy in the small Gulf kingdom was designed as cry for support, but will US policy-makers listen?
By: Jon Queally
Special forces in Bahrain’s capital of Manama beating up a pro-democracy protester on Wednesday. (Captured via Twitpic)Update (1:54 PM EST):
Anti-government protesters holding Bahraini flags march along the streets of the village of Saar during an anti-government protest, west of Manama, August 14, 2013. (Credit: REUTERS/Hamad Mohammed)While most eyes of the international press were focused on the dramatic and unfolding violence in Egypt on Wednesday, a security crackdown on pro-democracy activists was also underway in Bahrain with police firing birdshot and teargas on protesters hoping to reinvigorate their struggle against the ruling US-backed monarchy.
The Associated Press reports:
Bahraini protesters clashed with riot police in neighborhoods around the capital Wednesday and stores shut their doors amid opposition calls for a general strike, but a tight security clampdown appears to have stopped large-scale demonstrations in the city.
Anti-government activists, inspired by the mass movement behind the military coup in Egypt, said they hoped to gain new momentum by calling for nationwide protests including a march into upscale districts near Manama’s city center.
Bahrain has seen over two years of unrest linked to the Shiite majority’s demands for a greater say in the affairs of the Sunni-ruled kingdom, but in recent months security forces have mostly kept protests away from the center of the capital.
Ahead of Wednesday’s planned marches marking the 42nd anniversary of independence, authorities warned they would “forcefully confront” protests.
Demonstrators marching toward the center met barricades manned by security forces who fired tear-gas and stun grenades to disperse them.
And this is nothing new in Bahrain.
As Bahrain expert Marc Own Jones writes for CNN:
Despite a lack of media coverage, state sponsored repression has been going on for the past two years. Skirmishes in villages between groups of youths and the riot police occur almost daily, and while the former burn tires and throw Molotov cocktails, the latter fumigate the villages with tear gas, a tactic so virulent that one NGO accused the Bahrain authorities of “weaponizing toxic chemical agents.”
The skirmishes in the villages are symptomatic of over two years of repression by the Bahraini authorities. Peaceful demands for political reform put forward by thousands of Bahrainis in early 2011 have been ignored, and legitimate attempts to protest have been brutally repressed.
Renewed calls for demonstrations on August 14 have prompted the government to initiate a fresh swathe of repressive measures. Bahrain’s opposition-less parliament recently passed reactionary laws banning peaceful gatherings in Bahrain’s capital city and checkpoints, roadblocks and barbed wire fences have been erected around villages to stop people getting to protests.
