Agence France Presse 
DUBAI: Bahrain held Tuesday the first session of its national dialogue, which is aimed at forwarding reforms after authorities crushed a protest movement in March, official BNA news said.
There were about 60 participants each in simultaneous sessions on politics, the economy, human rights and social issues – the “four axes” on which the dialogue is to focus.

Sessions are to be held three times a week – Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, BNA said.
The dialogue comes after Bahraini security forces carried out a bloody mid-March crackdown on Shiite-led protesters who had been demonstrating for reforms in the Sunni-ruled, Shiite-majority kingdom since Feb. 14.
Authorities said that 24 people, most of them demonstrators, had been killed in the unrest.

The national dialogue was officially launched Saturday, with over 300 people invited to attend, including representatives of the main Shiite opposition bloc, the Islamic National Accord Association (Al-Wefaq).
Al-Wefaq, which made an 11th-hour decision to participate, only has five representatives at the dialogue, despite winning 18 out of 40 seats in the lower house of Parliament in the last elections.

Its lawmakers withdrew from Parliament in protest against the used violence against demonstrators.
While Al-Wefaq is participating for now, one of its former MPs, Khalil al-Marzooq, told AFP that all options “are open,” including pulling out of the dialogue if it fails to address “the will of the people.”
“The dialogue, as we see it, does not fulfill the demands of the Bahraini people in achieving a political solution, nor those of the international community,” Marzooq said.
The deputy pointed to the broad range of topics on the table as potentially detrimental to efforts on the political front.