MANAMA/DUBAI: Bahrain has released a detained ex-army captain who joined pro-democracy protests that hit the Gulf island kingdom earlier this year, activists said Monday.
Mohammad Buflasa, a Sunni who joined the protests led mostly by the country’s Shiite majority, was arrested in February after he gave a speech at the Pearl Roundabout, the epicenter of the demonstrations until Bahrain’s Sunni rulers crushed them in March.

Buflasa returned home late Sunday, and waved from the roof of his home to clapping crowds chanting his name, YouTube videos showed. Some of those present at the celebrations told Reuters the gathering had both Sunnis and Shiites present.
“Everybody was chanting ‘Shiite, Sunni are brothers’ and ‘We will not kill this country’ … He [Buflasa] was crying and waving out to people,” said 28-year-old Mahmoud, who declined to give his last name.
Bahrain says the mass protests in February and March had a sectarian agenda backed by Shiite power Iran, just across Gulf waters.

The opposition denies this and points to secular parties and Sunni participants like Buflasa to argue that its demands were related to democratic reforms.
Witnesses said hundreds of people were cheering Buflasa’s return to Hamad Town, near the capital Manama, until police firing tear gas broke up the celebrations.
Before the gathering was broken up, they said he gave a speech warning against sectarianism that could threaten democratic reforms.

“He said the country should not be divided, Shiites and Sunnis have the same demands,” Mahmoud said.
The government has tried to address international criticism by setting up a panel of international lawyers and human rights experts to investigate its handling of the unrest.
The commission earlier Sunday said it planned to probe the army’s handling of the protests and would look into detainees’ claims of torture.
Meanwhile, participants in a Bahraini national dialogue, set up to address grievances after protests earlier this year, have proposed expanding the powers of the Gulf kingdom’s elected parliament, the state news agency said Monday.

The talks, which ended Sunday, were designed to propose reforms after a four-month crackdown by Sunni rulers.
But critics say the results of the dialogue may carry little weight since the country’s largest Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq, walked out of the dialogue last week.

Delegates at the dialogue’s final session agreed to give the elected lower council greater legislative and monitoring powers, the state news agency BNA said. The opposition has complained that the upper Shura council, which is appointed by the king, limits the influence of the elected parliament.
“Overall, these decisions reinforce the parliament’s powers of scrutiny over the activities of the government, strengthening the accountability of ministers to the elected representatives of the people,” BNA said.

No information was given on exactly how the parliament would extend monitoring authorities or wield greater legislative powers, but dialogue officials said the proposals would be submitted to the king this week.
Al-Wefaq pulled out of the talks last Sunday, complaining that its views were not being taken seriously and that it was not fairly represented. It has criticized dialogue officials for only giving political opposition groups 35 out of 300 seats at the talks.

The government said it distributed seats in a way that fairly represented all of Bahraini society, including delegates from the government, opposition groups, unions, women’s societies and other professionals.
Al-Wefaq has argued the talks were just for show.