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Bahrainis rally for political reform
Unrest continues to rock Gulf island one-year on from Arab Spring
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. (AFP/Getty Images)
A live blog showed images of the protesters carrying banners denouncing “dictatorship” and demanding the release of detainees. (AFP/Getty Images)
“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,” Sheikh Isa Qassim said before the march in his weekly sermon in the Shi’ite village of Diraz. (AFP/Getty Images)
“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. (AFP/Getty Images)
Later hundreds of protesters broke away from the march to walk down the main highway into Manama in an attempt to return to a traffic intersection that protesters occupied for a month during last year’s uprising.(AFP/Getty Images)
Activists said riot police blocking the road fired tear gas and the interior ministry said protesters threw stones.(AFP/Getty Images)
The government, pressed by its Western allies to allow peaceful expression of dissent, has allowed more opposition protests in recent months. (AFP/Getty Images)
A statement from the royal court praised a small Friday rally of several hundred government loyalists under the name “Fateh Gathering”, and the Qassim march, as signs of democratic maturity.(AFP/Getty Images)
“The events at the Fateh Gathering as well as the gathering in the Northern Governorate are a source of pride for Bahrainis as a model of correct democratic behaviour,” state news agency BNA reported. (AFP/Getty Images)
Majority Shi’ites were in the forefront of the protest movement which erupted in February 2011 after uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. (AFP/Getty Images)
