{"id":17093,"date":"2013-04-17T11:23:35","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T17:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=17093"},"modified":"2013-04-17T11:23:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T17:23:35","slug":"bahrain-steets-filled-with-protest-ahead-of-eccelstones-bloody-f1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=17093","title":{"rendered":"Bahrain Steets filled with Protest Ahead of Eccelstone’s Bloody F1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands protest in Bahrain ahead of Grand Prix<\/strong>
\nAFP \u2013 17 April, 2013<\/p>\n

DUBAI \u2014 Thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated near Manama on Saturday urging democratic reforms, part of a campaign of protests planned by the political opposition ahead of next week’s Formula One Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Police used tear gas and sound bombs to break up a gathering of several hundred people in Sanabes, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

Further south, a 14-year-old boy was severely wounded in the face and two people arrested when police fired buckshot and tear gas at demonstrators, the main Shiite opposition group Al-Wefaq said on its website.<\/p>\n

But in Bilad Al-Qadim, several thousand people demonstrated peacefully, chanting “no to dictatorship” and “down with the regime,” witnesses said.<\/p>\n

Under the banner “Democracy is our right,” the mainly Shiite opposition is organising a week of protests that began on Friday to coincide with the April 19-22 Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Al-Wefaq chief Sheikh Ali Salman said the action was intended to support “demands for democratic transition”.<\/p>\n

“We do not want to hold up the race, but we are trying to benefit from the increased media presence,” he said.<\/p>\n

Salman called on his supporters to attend a demonstration planned for April 19, as the event kicks off on the Sakhir circuit south of the capital.<\/p>\n

A second opposition group, the February 14 Movement, organised another protest on Thursday night in the village of Khamis that was broken up by police.<\/p>\n

The demonstrations came as a report by Human Rights Watch that police have been rounding up pro-democracy activists in bid to head off protests stoked renewed controversy over the Gulf state’s hosting of the Formula One event.<\/p>\n

Bahrain was rocked by month-long pro-democracy protests led by the kingdom’s Shiite majority in early 2011 that were crushed with the help of Saudi-led troops.<\/p>\n

Protests have continued in Shiite villages outside the capital. Human rights groups say a total of 80 people have been killed since February 2011.<\/p>\n

Last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix went ahead against an ugly backdrop as police responded to protesters who were throwing petrol bombs by using tear gas, sound bombs and birdshot. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Thousands protest in Bahrain ahead of Grand Prix AFP \u2013 17 April, 2013 DUBAI \u2014 Thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated near Manama on Saturday urging democratic reforms, part of a campaign of protests planned by the political opposition ahead of next week’s Formula One Grand Prix. Police used tear gas and sound bombs to break up more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2840],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17094,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17093\/revisions\/17094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}