REUTERS

MANAMA: Some 20,000 protesters marched near the Bahraini capital of Manama Friday, shouting anti-government slogans and vowing to stick to their calls for democratic reforms in the Gulf island ruled by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.
“Down, down Hamad,” they chanted, waving Bahraini flags and raising their fists in the air as police helicopters buzzed overhead.

Small-scale protests and clashes with security forces have erupted almost daily outside Manama, in the villages where Bahrain’s majority Shiite population mostly resides.
Tensions have been simmering since the Sunni-ruled kingdom, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, quashed mass pro-democracy protests this March. Anxieties are also now rising ahead of a by-election scheduled for later this September.

The election aims to fill seats of parliamentarians from the largest Shiite party, Al-Wefaq, who resigned en masse when Bahrain used force against the protests. The government said the demonstrations had a sectarian agenda instigated by its regional Shiite rival Iran.
The March, organized by Al-Wefaq, was entitled, “No backing down, we are insistent on our demands.”
The mostly Shiite-led protesters have demanded a greater share in government and more powers for the legislature, whose authority is neutered by an upper council appointed by the king.

The government tried to respond by launching a National Dialogue to initiate reforms, but many Shiites and opposition figures criticized the talks as cosmetic. Al-Wefaq eventually pulled out of the dialogue.
Friday’s march comes a week after thousands took to the streets to protest the death of a 14-year-old boy who activists said was killed after being hit by a tear gas canister at a protest outside Manama. The government denied police were responsible for the boy’s death.
Some residents worried the death could be a trigger for more clashes in Bahrain, a tiny country that sits on the fault lines of tension between Sunni Gulf Arab states and Shiite Iran.

Pumping their fists, protesters shouted out “Thank you, thank you” as a speaker recited the names of some 47 medics who had treated demonstrators in February and were arrested during the March crackdown.
The 14 medics who still had not been released from prison started a hunger strike earlier this month, prompting many other jailed activists and Shiite leaders to join them.
The government released the medics Wednesday even as investigators said more than 80 other detainees were also refusing food.