{"id":5573,"date":"2012-02-02T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T16:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5573"},"modified":"2012-02-02T09:00:58","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T16:00:58","slug":"hundreds-of-saudi-shias-protest-against-al-saud-rule-in-awamiyah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5573","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of Saudi Shi&#8217;as Protest Against Al Saud Rule in Awamiyah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Hundreds of Saudi Shi&#8217;as Protest Against Al Saud Rule in Awamiyah<\/strong><br \/>\nABNA.co 02 February, 2012<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of Anti-government protesters have rallied in the Saudi city of Awamiyah to condemn Riyadh&#8217;s brutal crackdown on protests in Eastern Province.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of Saudi Shi(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) &#8211; Hundreds of Anti-government protesters have rallied in the Saudi city of Awamiyah to condemn Riyadh&#8217;s brutal crackdown on protests in Eastern Province.<\/p>\n<p>Shouting slogans against members of the ruling Al Saud family, including the Crown Prince Nayef, the demonstrators denounced the recent killings of anti-government protesters in the oil-rich region, demanding an end to the suppression of peaceful protests.<\/p>\n<p>They also condemned economic and religious discrimination in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Witnesses say security forces shot into the air to intimidate and disperse protesters, there were no immediate reports of casualties.<\/p>\n<p>Saudis hold peaceful demonstrations since February last year on an almost regular basis in the eastern region, demanding reforms, freedom of expression and the release of political prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>Activists say there are more than 30,000 political prisoners held in jails across Saudi Arabia who, the Saudi-based Human Rights First Society says, are being subjected to both physical and mental torture.<\/p>\n<p>According to rights activists, most of the detained are being held without trial or legitimate charges and have been arrested on grounds of mere suspicion.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-government protests in the Kingdom have intensified since November, when security forces opened fire on protesters in Qatif, killing five people and leaving many more injured.<\/p>\n<p>Riyadh has intensified its crackdown on protesters since the beginning of 2012. <a href=\"http:\/\/abna.ir\/data.asp?lang=3&#038;id=294176\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;source<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D5573&amp;text=Hundreds+of+Saudi+Shi%27as+Protest+Against+Al+Saud+Rule+in+Awamiyah&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of Saudi Shi&#8217;as Protest Against Al Saud Rule in Awamiyah ABNA.co 02 February, 2012 Hundreds of Anti-government protesters have rallied in the Saudi city of Awamiyah to condemn Riyadh&#8217;s brutal crackdown on protests in Eastern Province. Hundreds of Saudi Shi(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) &#8211; Hundreds of Anti-government protesters have rallied in the Saudi city <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=5573#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">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":[1578],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573"}],"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=5573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5574,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5573\/revisions\/5574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}