FRI 29 - 3 - 2024
 
Date: Mar 5, 2011
Source: The Daily Star
Bahrain preacher calls for unity after clashes

Saturday, March 05, 2011


A Bahraini Shiite opposition leader called for Sunni-Shiite harmony Friday as tens of thousands of protesters marched in Manama, a day after residents of a town south of the capital reported sectarian clashes.
“I will consider any attack against anyone in this country as an attack against me,” Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of the Islamic National Accord Association (INAA), the main Shiite political formation, told tens of thousands of demonstrators marching on the King Faisal Corniche in Manama.


Shiites should guarantee the safety of every Sunni family, and Sunnis should do the same for the Shiites, Salman said.
The demonstrators massed at the compound where the tiny Gulf kingdom’s Foreign Ministry is located and marched along the corniche toward Pearl Square.


The square, where demonstrators keep vigil in hundreds of tents, has become the epicenter of protests that began on February 14 against the Shiite-majority country’s Sunni dynasty, which has ruled for over 200 years.
“The people want to topple the government!” chanted the protesters, in a variation on their usual refrain of the “the people want to topple the regime.”


Salman’s remarks came after residents of Hamad Town, south of Manama, said police had intervened to break up Sunn-Shiite clashes late Thursday, the first such incident since protests began. Several people were injured in the clashes, triggered by a family dispute or a car accident, or both, according to differing residents’ accounts.


“There were about a hundred people involved,” one resident of Hamad Town said as police helicopters circled overhead and ambulances rushed from the scene.
Hamad Town residents said a group of Shiites fought with a group of Sunnis and Bahrainis of Syrian extraction. Only half of Bahrain’s population of 1.2 million are native Bahrainis.


Fighting died down when police arrived and fired tear gas to disperse crowds, the residents said. Later, there was a stand-off between riot police and groups of Shiites who rushed to the area from other parts of Bahrain.
Ibrahim Mattar of the main Shiite opposition group Al-Wifaq said about six people had been injured.

The Interior Ministry said it had taken police about two hours to get the situation in Hamad under control, with the help of local politicians and high-ranking government officials.


“The cause of the quarrel was simple and occurred among a small group, but the speed of the information flow and the interaction of people forced us to intervene,” Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed bin Abdullah al-Khalifa said in a statement.
Pro-government media said clashes erupted after a traffic accident. Both parties then called relatives to the scene.
“I heard many different versions,” Mattar said.


“I think there could have been a dispute between families in that area about something unrelated, not sectarian.”
Later Friday, two anti-government protests went ahead without incident. Thousands of members of the youth movement that has been at the heart of anti-government protests marched past a compound that houses state-owned Bahrain TV and the information authority to protest against what they see as biased coverage by state media.


Separately, tens of thousands demonstrated along Manama’s main highway crossing Pearl Square, focal point of the protests. The protest was called by established opposition groups including Al-Wifaq that are more moderate than the youth movement.


“We don’t want this fighting. Sunnis and Shiites in Bahrain are brothers, but the people from Yemen, Pakistan and Jordan are creating problems,” said one protester, referring to naturalized Sunni immigrants.
Six Bahraini opposition groups on Thursday laid out their conditions for dialogue with the government. The government “should announce that it has accepted four principles in the opening of the dialogue before going into the details,” the groups’ spokesman said.


The conditions include the “abolition of the 2002 constitution” and “the election of a constitutional assembly for drafting a new basic law,” said the spokesman. – Agencies

 



 
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