Friday, February 18, 2011

MANAMA: Army patrols and tanks locked down Bahrain’s capital after riot police swinging clubs and firing tear gas smashed into demonstrators, many of them sleeping, in a pre-dawn assault Thursday that uprooted their protest camp demanding political change. The police raid on anti-regime protesters killed three and wounded nearly 200.
Hours after the attack on Manama’s main Pearl Square, the military announced a ban on gatherings, saying on state television that it had “key parts” of the capital under its control.

After days of restraint, the island nation’s Sunni rulers unleashed a heavy crackdown, trying to stamp out the first anti-government upheaval to reach the Arab states of the Gulf since the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

In the wake of the bloodshed, angry demonstrators chanted “the regime must go” and burned pictures of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa outside the emergency ward at Salmaniyah hospital, the main state medical facility.
The hospital was thrown into chaos by a stream of dozens of wounded from Pearl Square with gaping wounds, broken bones and respiratory problems from tear gas.

The capital Manama was effectively shut down Thursday. For the first time in the crisis, tanks and military checkpoints were deployed in the streets and army patrols circulated.
The Interior Ministry warned Bahrainis to stay off the streets. Banks and other key institutions did not open, and workers stayed home, unable or too afraid to pass through checkpoints to get to their jobs.

Barbed wire and police cars with flashing blue lights encircled Pearl Square, the site of anti-government rallies since Monday.
The square was turned into a field of flattened protest tents and the strewn belongings of the protesters who had camped there, pieces of clothing and boxes of food.

Banners lay trampled on the ground, littered with broken glass, tear gas canisters and debris. A body covered in a white sheet lay in a pool of blood on the side of a road about 20 meters from the landmark square.
Demonstrators had been camping out for days around the square’s 90-meter monument featuring a giant pearl, a testament to the island’s pearl-diving past.

The protesters’ demands have two main objectives: force the ruling Sunni monarchy to give up its control over top government posts and all critical decisions, and address deep grievances held by the country’s majority Shiites who make up 70 percent of Bahrain’s 500,000 citizens but claim they face systematic discrimination and are effectively blocked from key roles in public service and the military.

The early morning assault came early Thursday with little warning, demonstrators said. Police surrounded the square and then quickly moved in: Some lined up on a bridge overhead, pumping down volleys of tear gas, as others waded into the camp, knocking down tents and swinging truncheons at those inside.

“We yelled, ‘We are peaceful! Peaceful!’ The women and children were attacked just like the rest of us,” said protester Mahmoud Mansouri. “They moved in as soon as the media left us. They knew what they’re doing.”
Dr. Sadek al-Ikri, 44, said he was tending to sick protesters at a makeshift medical tent in the square when the police stormed in. He said he was tied up and severely beaten, then thrown on a bus with others.

“They were beating me so hard I could no longer see. There was so much blood running from my head,” he said. “I was yelling, ‘I’m a doctor. I’m a doctor.’ But they didn’t stop.”

Ikri said that the police beating him spoke Urdu, the main language of Pakistan. A pillar of the protesters’ demands is to end the Sunni regime’s practice of giving citizenship to other Sunnis from around the region in order to try to offset the demographic strength of Shiites. Many of the new Bahrainis are given security posts.
Many families were separated in the chaos. An AP photographer saw police rounding up lost children and taking them into vehicles.

Bahrain’s Parliament, minus opposition lawmakers who are staging a boycott, met in emergency session.
A leader of the Shiite opposition Abdul-Jalil Khalil said 18 Parliament members have also resigned to protest the killings.

Many protesters called for the government to provide more jobs and better housing, free all political detainees and abolish the system that offers Bahraini citizenship to Sunnis from around the Middle East.
Increasingly, protesters also chanted slogans to wipe away the entire ruling dynasty that has led Bahrain for more than 200 years and is firmly backed by the Sunni sheikhs and monarchs across the Persian Gulf.
Before the attack on the square, protesters had called for major rallies after Friday prayers.

Across the city, government supporters in a caravan of cars waved national flags and displayed portraits of the king. “Come join us!” they yelled into markets and along busy streets. “Show your loyalty.” – Reuters, AP