Saturday, February 19, 2011

Bahrain: the army opened fire on protesters

Thousands of Shiites were buried Friday, February 14, their dead killed in the violent suppression of a rally calling for reforms in Manama. But meditation has quickly given way to more violence, when the army of Bahrain opened fire at the hospital level Salmaniya, on protesters who tried to visit the Place de la Perle, in the center Manama.

Dozens of people were injured and the death toll is currently very uncertain. At the funeral, the highest Shiite cleric in the kingdom, Sheikh Issa Qassem, said Thursday that the intervention of the police against demonstrators had resulted in a "massacre" and that the government refused dialogue.

Four people were killed Thursday during an army raid against hundreds of protesters camped on the Place de la Perle in Manama to demand political reforms. Because of mourning and the context of extreme tension between the opposition and the authorities, opposition groups in Bahrain have announced plans to postpone until Tuesday a march originally scheduled Saturday, informed the head of the Shiite Al-Wefaq, Sheikh Ali Salman.

At the initiative of seven opposition groups, this step should converge towards the Place de la Perle, in central Manama. Faced with tougher challenge, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa has promised Friday a dialogue with the opposition once calm was restored. "I make no distinction between a Bahraini and another and what is happening now is unacceptable," said Prince Salman.

"Bahrain has never been a police state," he said, stressing: "I'm not lying. All these people are my countrymen and the phase we are going through is difficult and requires us to be all responsible," he said. "It is important that our dialogue is going on in a quiet overall," he said, assuring that "no subject can not be excluded from this dialogue." "Bahrain is currently experiencing a state of division and that is unacceptable," he hammered the prince, noting that "many countries have experienced such a state but that their elders have come to talk of everything in a calm." King, Hamad Al-Khalifa Benissa, then decided to instruct the Crown Prince's "dialogue with all parties without exception," including the opposition, giving him why "the powers necessary," according to state television, State.

Through cooperation "sincere", "Bahrain will come out stronger," he said.

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