THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: As drivers prepared for the Bahrain Grand Prix, parts of the desert kingdom looked more like a war zone and one protester was discovered dead. Colin Freeman reports.
Built very much for strength rather than speed, they were not the kind of vehicles normally seen at the world's premiere motor racing event. Stretched along the desert highway leading to the Bahrain's Formula One race track were dozens of armoured personnel carriers - ready to use all means necessary to ensure the event went ahead.
More reminiscent of a war zone than a spectator sport, this was the extraordinary scene on Saturday as the Bahraini authorities launched a massive security clampdown to prevent pro-democracy supporters disrupting Sunday's Grand Prix. Yet their efforts to keep things peaceful proved fruitless: by late afternoon, demonstrators around the capital, Manama, were once again fighting running street battles with police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.
"This is not way to deal with peaceful protests," said demonstrator Hussein Mohammed, 25, looking down a street to where clouds of tear gas were drifting. "The government should not be hosting racing contests when people are denied basic rights."
Last night, it was claimed that one activist had already paid the ultimate price. The body of Salah Habib Abbas, 37, a municipal gardener, was found lying in a pool of blood on the roof of an allotment shed close to Shakhura village, where anti-government protesters had played a cat-and-mouse game with police the night before.
Fellow demonstrators said that after being chased through allotments, he had last been seen being arrested by police, who they alleged then beat him to death. » | Colin Freeman, Manama | Saturday, April 21, 2012
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