The Associated Press reports: Riot police in Bahrain fired tear gas and stun grenades Friday as tens of thousands of protesters staged the biggest anti-government demonstrations in weeks in the divided Gulf nation.

Opposition groups called for major rallies after a prominent rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, was placed back in detention earlier this week on fresh charges linked to his social media posts.

Bahrain has experienced near daily protests for 16 months caused by an uprising by the kingdom’s Shiite majority seeking greater political rights from the Western-backed Sunni monarchy. At least 50 people have died in the unrest since February 2011.

David Wearing writes: A violent crackdown on a broad-based, pro-democracy movement is, with the best will in the world, never going to be the easiest thing to defend. Nor is the staging of a major international sporting event in the country in question, when the regime is obviously going to try to use that event to help launder its reputation in the eyes of the world. Still, it remains inevitable that, when power and profit are at stake, the indefensible will be loudly defended. So it proved with last month’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

One recurring theme in the efforts to deflect criticism of the race was the line that there are worse places than Bahrain. Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmad Al Khalifa, the regime’s foreign minister, tweeted: “If any here to cover ugly bloody confrontations, go to syria. Here we have a grand Prix to enjoy”. Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone advised journalists to “Go to Syria and write about those things because it’s more important than here”.

Even David Cameron, while dodging the question of whether the race should proceed and making the standard noises about the importance of Britain’s ally undertaking political reforms, echoed the line when he said: “I think we should be clear: Bahrain is not Syria.”

The retort from Ecclestone and the Bahraini foreign minister, that worse things are happening elsewhere, also happens to be a favourite of the Israeli state and its defenders. A week before the Bahrain Grand Prix, activists arriving in Israel to protest about its treatment of the occupied Palestinians were presented with a letter from the prime minister’s office, noting that they had not chosen to protest against the Syrian or Iranian regimes, or against Hamas’s rule in Gaza, but instead had chosen “the Middle East’s sole democracy, where women are equal, the press criticizes the government, human rights organizations can operate freely, religious freedom is protected for all and minorities do not live in fear”.

Activists and journalists who draw attention to Israeli human rights abuses are by now well accustomed to hearing this argument being made, sometimes with the accompanying insinuation that Israel is being “singled out” for more sinister reasons. It is interesting to see this rhetorical device being employed in both these situations, and of course, fairly obvious problems apply in each case. [Continue reading…]

Wired looks at recent reports on government restrictions on the internet around the world including Enemies of the Internet Report 2012 from Reporters without Borders (RWB), which has raised Bahrain from the category “under surveillance” to “enemy”.

The report states: “Bahrain offers an example of an effective news blackout based on a remarkable array of repressive measures: keeping the international media away, harassing human rights activists, arresting bloggers and netizens (one of whom died in detention), smearing and prosecuting free speech activists, and disrupting communications, especially during the major demonstrations.”

As Computer World reported, internet traffic to and from the country dropped as much as 20 percent after 14th February 2011 — the day that the “rebellion” in the country started. High-speed web access was slowed down; access to YouTube and Facebook references to protests were blocked; and, a year later, says the RWB report, the live973.info website, which was streaming footage of a demonstration by the government opposition party, was blocked. However, most worrying are the arrests, which the RWB report says have “soared”.

In August 2011, Bloomberg published an article stating that the spy gear had been sold to the Bahrain government by Siemens AG and that this was being used to monitor phone calls and text messages. RWB adds: “Companies specialising in online surveillance are becoming the new mercenaries in an online arms race. Hacktivists are providing technical expertise to netizens trapped by a repressive regime’s apparatus. Diplomats are getting involved. More than ever before, online freedom of expression is now a major foreign and domestic policy issue.”

Marc Lynch writes: Nine days ago, the courageous Bahraini activist Alaa Shehabi wrote for Foreign Policy about the then sixty-four day hunger strike by Abd al-Hadi al-Khawajai. His death, she warned, “could mark a significant breaking point for the regime’s efforts to rehabilitate its tarnished reputation — and could accelerate the disturbing trend toward militant radicalization in the opposition.” As of today, Khawaja remains thankfully alive. But Bahrain’s ill-conceived Formula One race event has nevertheless already turned a harsh international spotlight onto the regime’s ongoing repression. And Shehabi, an academic with dual Bahrain-British citizenship whose husband was only recently released after nine months in prison, has been arrested.

Shehabi’s detention might seem a minor footnote given the ongoing protests, the numbers of activists and journalists arrested and pressured, Khawaja’s hunger strike, and the Formula One controversy. She hopefully will soon be released. But her detention while assisting journalists seems particularly symbolic at a time when Bahrain’s regime has sought to burnish its international reputation and suppress critical media coverage without engaging in serious reforms at home.

This week’s Formula One-driven media scrutiny has ripped away Bahrain’s carefully constructed external facade. It has exposed the failure of Bahrain’s regime to take advantage of the breathing space it bought through last year’s crackdown or the lifeline thrown to it by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Iniquiry. That failure to engage in serious reform will likely further radicalize its opponents and undermine hopes for its future political stability.

Reuters reports: When Formula One drivers performed their usual parade around the circuit on the back of a flatbed truck ahead of Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, the seats they were waving at were empty.

Few inside the Formula One bubble had any contact with the demonstrations in villages around the capital, which saw nightly clashes between demonstrators hurling Molotov cocktails and police firing teargas and birdshot.

Demonstrators denounced the Grand Prix as a lavish publicity stunt for a government that crushed Arab Spring protests. Their banners depicted race car drivers as riot police. Bahrainis mostly just stayed away.

Formula One earns its money from TV rights and corporate sponsors, not from selling tickets. But a government that wants to show that life is returning to normal had spared no expense to attract punters.

There was a rock music stage. Kids could enjoy tents for circus performers, arts and crafts, and musical theatre.

“It’s like Disneyland,” said one foreigner working in the stalls. “This is the best entertainment village I’ve seen in a long time. They’ve really pushed the boat out for obvious reasons.”

Still, the TV cameras on the front of the cars beamed to the world the unmistakable images of empty bleachers as the racers roared past the grandstands.

The Guardian reports: An investigation has been launched in Bahrain after an anti-government protester was found dead following clashes with riot police on the eve of the controversial Formula One grand prix.

Bahraini authorities confirmed on Saturday that the dead man was Salah Abbas Habib. It said in a statement that the 36-year-old had suffered a wound to his left side and the case was being treated as a homicide.

The public security chief, Major General Tariq al-Hassan, said: “”We are pressing ahead with our investigations with every resource available. I would ask that people await the results of the autopsy and further updates rather than relying on speculation, including rumours spread through social media. The government condemns all acts of violence and will ensure the perpetrators of this crime, whoever they may be, will be brought to justice.”

The opposition group al-Wefaq said Habib’s body was found on the roof of a building after he and other protesters were beaten by riot police who suppressed a demonstration in the village of Shakhura late on Friday night. They released a photograph of Habib’s blood-covered body on a corrugated iron roof. He was apparently found wearing a teargas mask. Reports suggested he had been shot.

Alex Massie writes: Until recently, sports fans had little cause to pay attention to Bahrain. The tiny Arab state, unlike its neighbors Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Qatar, with their mega-purchases of British soccer clubs or extravagant plans for hosting the 2022 World Cup, rarely featured on the international sporting calendar. But Formula One (F1) changed all that. In 2004 Bahrain, a Shiite majority kingdom ruled by the Sunni Al Khalifa family, won — or paid for, frankly — the right to become the first Arab country to host an F1 Grand Prix race, an event in the world’s pinnacle motorsport series, watched annually by over 600 million people.

For the first time, Bahrain had a place on the sporting map. The race was a publicity coup for the country and a boost to the ruling family’s prestige. Then came the Arab Spring.

Last season’s race was, eventually and reluctantly, cancelled in a storm of controversy as teams pondered the ethics of racing in a country wracked by protests and a violent government crackdown that left dozens of protestors dead. Damon Hill, a former F1 world champion, observed that racing in the “blood-soaked” kingdom would be akin to racing in South Africa at the height of the apartheid regime.

How quickly we forget. A year later, F1 has returned to Bahrain — kicking off a gaudy three-day extravaganza that begins on Friday, April 20 — though the political situation in the country is as fraught as it was in 2011.

According to Amnesty International, “Despite the authorities’ claims to the contrary, state violence against those who oppose the Al Khalifa family rule continues, and in practice, not much has changed in the country since the brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters in February and March 2011.”

Amnesty’s concerns are widely shared. This week, the hackers collective Anonymous attacked the official F1 website to highlight the regime’s crackdown on dissent and F1’s complicity in pretending all is well in Bahrain. As the hackers put it, “the regime persists to deny any meaningful reform and continues to use brutal and violent tactics to oppress the popular calls for reformation. Not only is the Human Rights situation in Bahrain tragic, it becomes more drastic with each passing day. For these reasons the F1 Grand Prix in Bahrain should be strongly opposed.”

The hackers’ solidarity with the protesters may be a useful gesture, but the reform movement remains under the cosh of the government. And though there is less overt violence now than there was a year ago, it’s a difference of degree, not of kind. So why the F1 flip-flop? Why will they race on Sunday in Bahrain when they would not a year ago?

The answer is simple: money. [Continue reading…]

International Crisis Group: Beneath a façade of normalisation, Bahrain is sliding toward another dangerous eruption of violence. The government acts as if partial implementation of recommendations from the November 2011 Independent Commission of Inquiry (the Bassiouni Report) will suffice to restore tranquillity, but there is every reason to believe it is wrong. Political talks – without which the crisis cannot be resolved – have ground to a halt, and sectarian tensions are mounting. A genuine dialogue between the regime and the opposition and a decision to fully carry out the Bassiouni Report – not half-hearted measures and not a policy of denial – are needed to halt this deterioration.

Clashes between young protesters and security forces occur nightly, marked by the former’s use of Molotov cocktails and the latter’s resort to tear gas. Several have died, in most cases reportedly due to tear gas inhalation. The 9 April explosion of a handmade bomb in al-Akar, a Shiite village in the east of the Kingdom, which injured seven policemen, crossed a significant threshold and could be followed by worse. Already, even before authorities could investigate, pro-government Sunni vigilante groups retaliated, vandalising two cars and a supermarket owned by a Shiite firm accused of supporting the February 2011 protests.

Amid these and other violent events – including the death of a young protester apparently shot from a civilian car – there are two potential time bombs. The first concerns Bahrain’s scheduled hosting of a Formula 1 race on 22 April. On 8 April, the Coalition of the Youth of the February 14 Revolution, an umbrella for an array of opposition groups that commands the loyalty of Shiite neighbourhoods, warned that it would consider participants, sponsors and spectators as regime allies and declared that it would not accept blame for “any violent reaction” during the event. The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights has pledged to use the expected presence of foreign tourists and journalists to highlight human rights violations; the government’s 15 April arrest of human rights activists shows that it will try hard to prevent this.

Gregg Carlstrom writes: The talk of Bahrain at present is talk — the possible renewal of dialogue between the government and the opposition — but the reality is that street protests, after simmering in outlying villages for months, have begun to heat up in the capital of Manama.

Opposition activists staged a large rally in the first week of April in support of jailed human rights activist ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Khawaja, whose nine-week hunger strike has turned him into a symbol of resistance to the government in the eyes of many Bahrainis. Khawaja was arrested a year previous as part of the crackdown on the popular uprising that began on February 14, 2011 and became centered in Pearl Roundabout on Manama’s outskirts. He was moved to a military hospital on April 6 because of his rapidly deteriorating health. The February 14 Youth Coalition has also organized almost daily protests aimed at the Formula One auto race scheduled for April 22. The government is eager to hold the race to show that Bahrain’s unrest is in the past; the opposition wants it canceled. On April 13, Formula One said the event would proceed as planned.

Violence is escalating on both sides, though the great bulk has come from the state: Security forces are firing more and more tear gas at protesters and in villages sympathetic to the opposition, with two thirds of gas-related deaths occurring since November. Some youth activists, meanwhile, are abandoning peaceful tactics in favor of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police (who have repeatedly been caught on video throwing their own petrol bombs back). On April 9 there were reports of homemade bombs going off or exploding accidentally in the village of al-‘Ikr, causing several injuries among riot police.

In November, there was a moment of optimism after the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) released its report upon the widespread abuses of the preceding eight months. Despite some flaws, the report was generally a clear-eyed assessment of torture and arbitrary detention by the state, as well as sectarianism and other issues. Activists said at the time that if King Hamad bin ‘Isa Al Khalifa responded with grand gestures, perhaps a general amnesty for political prisoners and a serious offer of dialogue with the opposition, the report could be the starting point for compromise. But that hope was quickly extinguished; the BICI report, like past attempts at reconciliation, seems to have only deepened Bahrain’s stalemate and strengthened the opposition’s determination to press its case in the streets. [Continue reading…]

Human Rights Watch has warned Formula 1 that by holding next week’s Bahrain Grand Prix, it will be endorsing the kingdom’s regime despite claims that sport and politics don’t mix.

Joe Stork, the deputy middle east director of Human Rights Watch, which monitors human rights issues worldwide, stopped short of calling for the race to be cancelled in an interview with AUTOSPORT. But he believes that if the race does happen then F1 will be seen as supporting the government.

“You can’t say that you are not mixing politics and sport when you are coming down on one side,” Stork told AUTOSPORT. “You may prefer not to be facing the choice of whether to go in or stay out, but this is the choice F1 faces. Whatever decision it takes, there is a political aspect to it.

“We don’t feel that it is our place to be calling for F1 to boycott Bahrain. But it is not a very good situation and it’s getting steadily worse. We are not security experts, so that’s a whole separate consideration that F1 needs to take into account as well.

“We are looking at a lockdown. F1 is not my world, but this seems to be a terrible climate in which to hold what is supposed to be a competitive, festive sporting event. In the circumstances, I don’t know who is going to be having any fun.”

By Justin Elliott, ProPublica, April 2, 2012

This article originally appeared at ProPublica.

Last year, as the government of Bahrain violently suppressed an Arab Spring protest movement, an unlikely champion of the small Gulf nation emerged on Capitol Hill in Washington: Democratic Rep. Eni Faleomavaega, the delegate from American Samoa.

Faleomavaega, who has been a non-voting delegate in Congress since 1989 and is now the third-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, typically focuses on more local matters: the tuna industry, Pacific Islands affairs and securing federal funding for American Samoa.

But this week he is taking a trip to Bahrain, his second in the past year, both paid by the Bahraini government. It’s part of a year-long friendship the congressman has developed with the Gulf nation.

In March 2011, just weeks into the crisis, Faleomavaega emerged seemingly out of nowhere 2014 he has no history of commenting on Middle East affairs 2014 to enter a 2,500-word statement into the Congressional Record that closely echoed the Bahraini government’s spin. “Bahrain is under attack,” he said, painting protesters as violent, Iran-backed vandals representing “the worst kind of seditious infiltration from a foreign enemy.” He praised the Crown Prince for supposedly meeting protesters’ demands for democratic reforms.

“Mr. Speaker,” Faleomavaega said. “I have to ask why the demonstrators returned to protesting again, even after all their demands were agreed to.”

Just days before, the government had torn down the iconic Pearl Monument at the center of the protests, and Saudi Arabian tanks had rolled into Bahrain to back the government crackdown.

So, why is the delegate from American Samoa so interested in supporting Bahrain? Faleomavaega told ProPublica it’s because “Bahrain has been a key ally and supporter of U.S. security interests in this region of the world.” But there’s another connection: A lobbying firm run by a longtime friend and campaign contributor to Faleomavaega is working for the regime’s allies.

The lobbying firm, D.C.-based Policy Impact Communications, is headed by William Nixon, a former Reagan speechwriter and Hill staffer who describes himself as a close personal friend of Faleomavaega. In 2010, Nixon and his wife gave Faleomavaega $4,800, making Policy Impact the congressman’s second-largest organizational donor that cycle. (The largest donor was StarKist.) Faleomavaega raises less than most members of Congress, having taken in just $65,500 that election and just $15,800 in the current cycle. Nixon is also president of the Mormon church’s northern Virginia Mount Vernon Stake, of which Faleomavaega is a member. (American Samoa has one of the highest percentages of Mormons in the world, with more than 25 percent of residents belonging to the church, according to Latter-day Saints figures.)

In March 2011, a month into the Bahrain crisis and about two weeks before Faleomavaega entered that first statement into the Congressional Record, Policy Impact created the Bahrain American Council. The group is operated out of Policy Impact’s K Street offices. And its board is vice-chaired by a Policy Impact executive. The group says it focuses on promoting U.S.-Bahrain trade and “educating the public about the strategic importance of Bahrain.”

The council also has close ties to Bahrain’s government: It previously listed a top Bahraini official as a member of its advisory board. The council was set up by a group of Bahraini-American businessmen, according to Policy Impact, but details of who is funding the group are not public. Policy Impact’s Nixon said the firm has not registered with the Justice Department as an agent of Bahrain, which is required when a firm is lobbying for a foreign entity, because the Bahrain American Council is run by Americans.

The group’s creation coincided with Bahrain’s hiring of several lobbying and public-relations firms to shore up its image in Washington and preserve its key alliance with the U.S. during the crackdown on protests.

Policy Impact’s Nixon told ProPublica that he and Faleomavaega have been “close personal friends [going] back almost before he was elected to Congress” in 1988, but that “there’s never been a quid pro quo on anything I’ve done professionally” with the congressman.

“When you give money to a congressman 2014 which I do; I’ve been in Washington since 1983 2014 there’s never an expectation of something for that money,” Nixon said. “Most often that money gets in the way of their ability to really assist you because it looks like something nefarious is under way.”

The Bahrain American Council appears to have worked closely with Faleomavaega from early on. It has featured his statements on Bahrain on its website, including Faleomavaega’s defense of Bahrain during a congressional human rights hearing in May. In Bahrain, both state-run and pro-government media have touted Faleomavaega’s various statements on the crisis (sample headline: “‘Democracy can’t be achieved through violence and blocking roads’, US Congress members said”). Last September, the Bahrain American Council’s president and an adviser to the king of Bahrain, Muhammad Abdul Ghaffar, met with Faleomavaega in his Capitol Hill office.

In October, Faleomavaega along with Reps. Donald Payne, D-N.J., and Lynne Woolsey, D-Calif., traveled to Bahrain on his first trip paid by Bahrain’s government. On the first night of the trip, the Bahrain American Council hosted a dinner honoring the members of Congress at the five-star Gulf Hotel in the capital, Manama. The Bahrain American Council’s president, Al Khalafalla, also accompanied the delegation in a meeting with the king. And the Bahrain American Council co-sponsored a speech by Faleomavaega in Manama in which he again criticized protesters and blamed Iran for stirring up unrest.

The congressional delegation also met with members of opposition party, Wefaq, but a party official later expressed disappointment with the meeting, writing that “the response of the delegation did not meet our expectation as it did not show enough understanding for the legitimate demands for reform.”

Faleomavaega, for his part, said in an email that he was introduced to the Bahrain American Council by Bart Marcois, a political operative who was, for a six-month period beginning last year, a vice president at Policy Impact.

Marcois is a former foreign service officer for the State Department and also former public affairs adviser to the government of Kuwait in Washington. He has also been active in Mormon outreach in the GOP, founding the Republican National Committee’s Advisory Council on LDS Outreach and running Eagle PAC, which was created in 2007 “to solicit money from Mormons for distribution to Republican congressional candidates,” according to Politico.

Marcois said he is a longtime friend of both Faleomavaega and Khalafalla, the head of the Bahrain American Council, and he introduced them early last year after the council was created but before he had joined Policy Impact.

“I’ve known [Faleomavaega] for a long time, and you can never predict what he’s going to get involved in,” Marcois said. “He doesn’t get involved in anything for somebody’s interests.”

Faleomavaega said he became interested in Bahrain because he is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and because the situation involves the alleged influence of Iran, which he believes is also extending to the Pacific Islands region.

“Due to the February 14, 2011 uprisings in Bahrain, which have yet to be resolved, I have a keen interest in our strategic and national security interests in this region,” Faleomavaega said in an email to ProPublica, “especially in view of Iran’s influence in the Middle East and in the Persian Gulf region 2014 and whether it is subtle or overt, I am also concern[ed] that Iranian influence is now seemingly visible in South America and in the Pacific Islands.” As evidence, he pointed to Iran’s diplomatic relations with the Solomon Islands.

Faleomavaega’s foray into the Bahrain issue isn’t the first time he has advocated for a faraway foreign country with a connection to Policy Impact.

In April 2009, the government of Kazakhstan, criticized by human-rights groups for its record under longtime dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, hired Policy Impact on a $1.5 million contract to “illustrate Kazakhstan’s progress on human rights” and to establish a Central Asia caucus in Congress.

Over the next few months, Policy Impact officials had four in-person meetings and one phone call with Faleomavaega, who was then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, lobbying records show. In November 2009, Faleomavaega and Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., founded the Congressional Caucus on Central Asia.

Faleomavaega also praised Kazakhstan in a conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and robustly defended the country before a U.S. government commission that had been critical of Nazarbayev’s human-rights record. Faleomavaega pointed to Kazakhstan’s decision to give up its nuclear stockpile after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

“While human-rights groups continue to point fingers at Kazakhstan, I submit that only Kazakhstan had the moral courage to renounce nuclear weapons altogether for the sake of all mankind,” Faleomavaega said, also praising “President Nazarbayev’s leadership and commitment in the service of his people.”

In July 2009, Faleomavaega also traveled to Kazakhstan, telling a government official there, “I continue to argue with my colleagues about human rights in Kazakhstan,” according to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. “I tell them you are only 18 years old. It took the United States 150 years to grant voting rights to African-Americans!”

Faleomavaega has denied that Policy Impact’s contract with Kazakhstan has anything to do with his involvement in the country, saying that he feels a special connection to the country because, like some islands in the Pacific region, it was the site of nuclear-weapons testing during the Cold War.

Nixon, the Policy Impact chairman, said that, as in the Bahrain case, “there was never ever a corollary between my relationship to the congressman and our representing Kazakhstan and the congressman’s interest in Kazakhstan.”

Faleomavaega is the second delegate to represent the unincorporated territory of American Samoa (population: 68,000) in the House since the position was created in 1978. Like the other four non-voting delegates in the House 2014 from the District of Columbia and three other island areas 2014 Faleomavaega hires staff with taxpayer money (more than $1 million per year), can introduce legislation and, in committee, possesses the same powers and privileges as full members of Congress. But he cannot vote on matters before the full House.

Faleomavaega is set to move just one spot away from the top Democratic position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. While he is the third-ranking Democrat, he will move to the No. 2 slot next year with the retirement of Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y. Nothing in the House rules would bar him from chairing the committee someday, though he would have to be nominated by the Democratic caucus.

Ali Alaswad writes: When 100,000 or more people take to the streets in protest, governments in most parts of the world would see it as a sign that they need to change course – especially in a country with only about 600,000 citizens.

But Bahrain is no ordinary country. Its prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, has been in office for more than 40 years and his nephew, King Hamad, insists there is no opposition as such: “We only have people with different views… and now they are talking with their brothers.”

So far, though, there has been no move towards serious dialogue, instead just a campaign of repression that has claimed at least 80 lives and created hundreds of political prisoners.

We in the opposition have reiterated time and again our calls for “meaningful dialogue”, as President Obama put it. We stand ready to move the country forward towards a democratic future, but the only engagement from the authorities has been violence, not discussion.

Rather than address our demands, the government has resorted to peddling lies to discredit our movement internationally – a strategy it has used since day one of this crisis, which shows its complete refusal to reform. Last October we published The Manama Document to show our roadmap to reform. The government has ignored this and we have received no official response.

Reuters reports: Tens of thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated on Friday to demand democratic reforms, stepping up pressure on the U.S.-allied government with the biggest protest yet in a year of unrest.

They began marching along a highway near Manama in response to a call from leading Shi’ite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim, who urged people to renew their calls for greater democracy.

A live blog showed images of the protesters carrying banners denouncing “dictatorship” and demanding the release of detainees.

“We are here for the sake of our just demands that we cannot make concessions over and we stick with them because we have sacrificed for them,” Qassim said before the march in his weekly sermon in the Shi’ite village of Diraz.

Qassim and other Shi’ite clerics led the march.

“It is the biggest demonstration in the past year. I would say it could be over 100,000,” said a Reuters photographer after protesters filled up the main Budaiya highway in the area of Diraz and Saar, west of Manama.