Bahrain: Is a U.S. Ally Torturing Its People?
TIME: On March 17, Ibrahim Shareef, the head of the anti-government activist movement Waad, was snatched from his home at gunpoint by what his family describes as Bahraini security forces. Thrown into a waiting sport utility vehicle, he was driven off into the night. Today he's still missing, whereabouts unknown.

As the island kingdom's Sunni regime continues to crack down on anti-government activists and prominent Shi'ites, Shareef and more than 460 others are believed to be in government custody. New arrests happen daily in the country, which is home base of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. Bahrain was designated an official Non-NATO ally in October 2001, after the 9/11 attacks on America.

While there have been wild rumors of the whereabouts of the arrested dissidents, the likely truth is dire enough. Nearly all may be held in prisons around Bahrain, with an unknown number undergoing questioning and torture. On Wednesday, opposition party al-Wefaq claimed that at least four detainees had been killed since April 2, from injuries sustained from police-inflicted torture. Human Rights Watch says another three died in March, including one man who arrived in custody with knees blown out by ammunition fired at close range. » | Karen Leigh | Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bahrain Bans Main Opposition Newspaper
AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Paper critical of government accused of publishing "fabricated" reports about last month's pro-democracy protests.

Bahraini authorities have banned Al-Wasat, the country's main opposition newspaper, which has been critical of the government in its coverage of Shia-led protests quashed last month.

The newspaper did not publish on Sunday after a message on state TV saying Bahrain's Information Ministry had ordered the paper to shut down.

The state-run Bahrain News Agency (BNA) says officials accuse Al-Wasat of "unethical" coverage of the Shia-led uprising against the country's Sunni rulers.

The Kingdom's Information Affairs Commission also referred the newspaper for investigation, BNA said.

Al-Wasat has been accused of publishing "fabricated" reports last week about the "security developments in Bahrain". » | Source: Agencies | Sunday, April 03, 2011

Shiites in Iraq Support Bahrain’s Protesters
THE NEW YORK TIMES: BAGHDAD — The violent suppression of the uprising in Bahrain has become a Shiite rallying cry in Iraq, where the American war overturned a Sunni-dominated power structure much like the one in place in Bahrain.

Ahmad Chalabi, an erstwhile American partner in the period before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and a Shiite member of Parliament, on Friday denounced what he called a double standard in the Western powers’ response to the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East — particularly in Bahrain, where a Sunni minority dominates a vast and restive underclass made up of his Shiite brethren.

“They called for international action in Libya,” Mr. Chalabi said in a meeting hall on the grounds of his farm outside Baghdad. “But they kept their mouths shut with what is happening in Bahrain.”

The Iraqi Parliament briefly suspended its work to protest Bahrain’s crackdown on largely peaceful protesters, and the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, also a Shiite, recently said in an interview with the BBC that the events in Bahrain could unleash a regional sectarian war like the one that menaced Iraq just a few years ago. » | Tim Arango | Friday, April 01, 2011

Bahrain's Calculated Campaign of Intimidation
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Bahraini activists and locals describe midnight arrests, disappearances, beatings at check-points, and denial of medical care – all aimed at deflating the country's pro-democracy protest movement.

Manama, Bahrain
With a wave of midnight arrests, checkpoints, and targeting of wounded protesters, Bahrain's Sunni rulers have launched what appears to be a calculated campaign to intimidate supporters of the pro-democracy protest movement that began here in February.

Security forces have directed much of the abuse – which includes midnight arrests, checkpoints, and targeting of wounded protesters – toward Bahrain’s majority Shiite population, instilling fear and raising sectarian tensions in the tiny kingdom.

“I don’t want to go anywhere now. I’ll stay in my home because there is no safety,” says Ibrahim, a university student who says he was recently beaten and held for 36 hours at a checkpoint, and has a deformed left ear and bruises elsewhere to prove it. He asked that his last name be withheld for his own safety.

“While they were beating us, they said, ‘Where is your Mahdi now? Why isn’t he coming to save you?’ ” says Ibrahim, referring to a messianic figure in Shiite Islam. “They made us scream 'Mahdi.' They put my face in the ground, and told me to speak. Then they kicked dust in my mouth.”

What was their crime?

“We are Shiite,” says Ibrahim. “They want to remove all Shia from Bahrain.”

In a speech to parliament Tuesday, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed al-Khalifa said the authorities were not targeting Shiites, but were imposing law and order. Bahrain is operating under emergency law, put in place last month.

"The measures are not imposed against any religious sect as some have said, but rather they are used against those who have broken the law," he said, according to the state news agency. " We are not trying to spread evil, but good, and outlaws will meet justice." » | Kristen Chick, Correspondent | Friday, April 01, 2011

Bahrain 'Targets' Wounded Protesters
THE INDEPENDENT: Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that Bahrain authorities were harassing and isolating hospital patients wounded in anti-government protests when security forces began a crackdown in the kingdom two weeks ago.

Bahrain's Sunni rulers this month imposed martial law and brought in troops from Sunni-led Gulf neighbours, including Saudi Arabia, to quell weeks of unrest during pro-democracy demonstrations led mostly by the state's Shi'ite majority.

Twenty-four people were killed in the ensuing clashes, the government said on Tuesday. The opposition Wefaq party says 250 people have been detained and another 44 have gone missing since the crackdown.

The security measures were condemned by Iran, the main Shi'ite power in a region dominated by Sunni Muslim rulers, which said they could lead to a wider conflict.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled al-Khalifa said Iran should stop its "offensive" against Bahrain, telling pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that political dialogue could only start once security had been restored in the island kingdom. Opposition parties reiterated denials of any foreign backing on Wednesday.

US-based Human Rights Watch said it was concerned Bahrain forces were targeting hospital patients who were protesters or bystanders in scattered demonstrations that broke out last Friday in a planned "Day of Rage" that police quickly quashed.

"Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented several cases in which patients with protest-related injuries were transferred to or sought treatment at Salmaniya and were then severely harassed or beaten," it said in a statement. » | Erika Solomon, Reuters | Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Eleven More Opposition Members Quit Bahrain Parliament
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES: The parliament of Bahrain has accepted the resignations of eleven Shia opposition politicians, thereby widening the gulf between the Sunni ruling elite and the largely Shia protest movement in the tiny kingdom.

The state-controlled Bahrain News Agency reported that eleven members of the opposition Al Wefaq party quit to protest the government’s violent crackdown on protesters. Seven other Wefaq officials had previously quit over the same grievance.

Al Wefac, which has refused to enter into any dialogue with the ruling family, is the largest and most prominent of Bahrain’s seven opposition parties. » | Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Hundreds of Saudi Shi'ites Protest in East
REUTERS CANADA: RIYADH - Hundreds of Saudi Shi'ites staged a protest in the kingdom's oil-producing Eastern Province Friday calling for prisoner releases and a withdrawal of Saudi forces from Bahrain, activists said.

The world's No. 1 oil producer and a U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia has not seen the kind of mass uprisings that have rocked the Arab world this year. But dissent is simmering in the kingdom as unrest takes root in neighboring Yemen, Bahrain and Oman.

There were rallies in two villages close to the main Shi'ite center of Qatif shortly after midday and afternoon prayers.

"There are around 400 protesters here at the moment and some are waving Bahraini flags," said one protester who declined to be named. "The protests are peaceful and the riot police are well away from the demonstrators."

Demonstrators called for political freedoms and an end to what they call sectarian discrimination against Saudi Arabia's Shi'ite Muslim majority by the absolute Sunni monarchy.

Saudi Shi'ites have held a number of protests in Eastern Province, where most of the country's oil fields are. » | Jason Benham | Friday, March 25, 2011

Bahrain Airlines Stop Iran, Iraq, Lebanon Flights
AHRAM ONLINE: Bahrain cancels flights to countries critical to their repression of uprising

Bahraini airlines have suspended flights to Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, where Shiite communities have criticised the kingdom's response to Shiite-led protests in the Gulf state, the airlines said Wednesday.

On Friday, Bahrain carried out a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists demonstrating since February 14 in the tiny Shiite-majority, Sunni-ruled kingdom.

Iran condemned last week's intervention of troops from neighbouring Gulf states in support of Manama, while Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah has offered unspecified support for the Shiite-led Bahraini opposition.

And thousands of protesters have turned out in Iraq in shows of support for Bahraini Shiites. » | AFP | Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Bahrain: Powder Keg of the Gulf?
Reporters - The smallest kingdom in the Arab world is seeing protests against authorities go from strength to strength. The Shiite majority is demonstrating against the Sunni Al Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled Bahrain with an iron fist for two centuries. Shiites say they are victims of social and political discrimination

THE TIMES: Bahrain: Fate of first woman to die in crackdown: Thousands of mourners gathered in Bahrain yesterday to lay to rest the first woman to die during weeks of violence in the tiny Gulf kingdom. She was killed in an incident that her family insist is the subject of a cover-up. Bahia al-Aradi, 51, was shot dead last Wednesday at an army checkpoint… » | Hugh Tomlinson, Manama | Wednesday, March 23, 2011 [£]

Oil Interests Muted Bahrain Criticism: Analysts
VANCOUVER SUN: BAGHDAD - Saudi Arabia's massive oil wealth and Sunni solidarity against Shiite Iran is the main reason Arab states remained muted over repression in Bahrain, while loudly protesting over the crushing of a popular revolt in Libya, analysts say.

"Riyadh has traded Bahrain for Libya, because what happens at its borders is vital for the kingdom," said Burhan Ghalioun, director of the Centre for Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris.

He said "the allied military intervention in Libya is secondary for Gulf countries, because their relations are very bad with Moamer Gadhafi," the Libyan leader facing a revolt at home and air strikes by an international coalition to prevent his brutal crackdown on civilians.

On March 14, Saudi Arabia sent 1,000 troops across the causeway into Bahrain, and two days later police cracked down on protesters who had been camped in the centre of Manama for a month, killing three demonstrators.

"Nobody is interested in showing hostility to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. Westerners and Arab states alike need their oil and huge financial resources," Ghalioun added.

Nearly half of the world's oil reserves are owned by the Gulf monarchies, which since 1984 have been linked through the "Peninsula Shield" defence pact.

It has been conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, and the looming shadow of Iran, that has been instrumental in coalescing support behind King Hamad, the Sunni monarch who rules over a Bahrain population that is 70 per cent Shiite. » | Agence France-Presse | Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Rights Groups Condemn Bahrain Violence
Human rights activists have condemned military aggression towards anti-government protesters demanding political change in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain. Al Jazeera has spoken to the family of a father who was killed after driving past an unofficial checkpoint in the country.
 Al Jazeera's correspondent, who we are not naming for his safety, has this report

Saudi Deployment in Bahrain Risks Sectarian Conflict
THE JERUSALEM POST: Analysts say the unique Saudi move has crossed a red line for Iran which may prompt it to intervene as a counterweight.

Saudi Arabia’s decision to deploy security forces in embattled Bahrain threatens to escalate a domestic political dispute in the island state into a sectarian confrontation with Iran, whose reverberations may be felt as far afield as Iraq and Lebanon, analysts said.

Saudi Arabia, together with security personnel from the United Arab Emirates operating under a mandate from the Gulf Cooperation Council, has placed 2,000 soldiers and police in Bahrain. At the cost of four lives, scores of injured and the imposition of martial law, calm has been restored. A week after the March 14 deployment, businesses, the stock market and schools were re-opening.

But analysts said the Saudi move – the first ever by one Arab state intervening militarily in another since the onset of the so-called Jasmine Revolution three months ago – has crossed a red line for Iran and may prompt it to intervene as a counterweight.

A tiny country with no oil of its own, Bahrain nevertheless holds a strategic place in the Gulf. It is home to the US Fifth Fleet and is adjacent to Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil fields. Its Sunni Islamic monarchy is close to the Saudi ruling house as well as the US, but some 70% of its population shares the Shi'ite faith of Iran, Riyadh’s rival for regional supremacy.

“Iran sees it as an attack on the international Shi'ite community,” Theodore Karasik, director for research and development at the Dubai-based Institute for near east and Gulf Military Analysis. “Also, they have claimed Bahrain in the past, as a historical claim, is Iran’s 14th province. That kind of rhetoric is a portent for the future.” » | David Rosenberg / The Media Line | Monday, March 21, 2011

The Proxy Battle in Bahrain
THE NEW YORK TIMES: CAIRO — King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has demonstrated one lesson learned from the course of pro-democracy uprisings across the Middle East: The world may cheer when autocrats resign, but it picks carefully which autocrats to punish for opening fire on their citizens.

That cynical bit of realpolitik seems to have led the king to send troops last week over the causeway from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, where they backed up a violent crackdown on unarmed protesters by Bahrain’s own security forces.

The move had immediate consequences for Middle East politics, and for American policy: It transformed Bahrain into the latest proxy battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for regional dominance. And it called into question which model of stability and governance will prevail in the Middle East, and which Washington will help build: one based on consensus and hopes for democracy, or continued reliance on strongmen who intimidate opponents, sow fear and co-opt reformist forces while protecting American interests like ensuring access to oil and opposing Iran.

For Saudi Arabia, the issue in Bahrain is less whether Bahrain will attain popular rule than whether Iranian and Shiite influence will grow.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have sparred on many fronts since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 — a Shiite Muslim theocracy in Tehran versus a deeply conservative Sunni Muslim monarchy in Riyadh — in a struggle for supremacy in the world’s most oil-rich region. The animosity was evident in Saudi Arabia’s support for Iraq during its war with Iran, and it still shows in Iran’s backing for Hezbollah in Lebanon. » | Michael Slackman | Saturday, March 19, 2011

Saudi Arabian Intervention in Bahrain Driven by Visceral Sunni Fear of Shias
THE OBSERVER: Despite an official stance that the Saudis were there to restore order, the real aim was to crush the rebels

Saudi Arabia and the UAE between them sit on tens of billions of dollars worth of state-of-the-art military equipment. They have both backed calls for UN-sponsored "no-fly zones" over Libya.

Even if they are now willing to risk their expensive toys against the relatively meagre threat from Colonel Gaddafi's air defences, they will play a junior role to western forces.

It will be the second military intervention by the Gulf states in a few days, but the first was on a far more primitive level: teargas grenades fired at point-blank range into the faces of unarmed demonstrators; punishment beatings for injured protesters in their hospital beds; violence and intimidation against the wives and children of opposition activists in their village homes.

Hypocrisy is one word for the motives behind the deployment of the "Peninsula Shield" forces in Bahrain last week. Cowardice is another.

When I watched Saudi soldiers rolling over the causeway linking the two kingdoms on Monday, they were giving victory signs to local TV cameras. Bahrain TV showed archive footage of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Hamad of Bahrain performing a traditional Bedouin war dance together.

Despite the official stance that the Saudis and UAE troops had arrived to guard essential infrastructure and restore order on the streets, there was little doubt as to the real purpose: to put down, by whatever means necessary, a growing rebellion by the kingdom's majority, but deprived, Shia citizens.

The day before, unarmed demonstrators had effectively beaten the security forces in Manama. A move to clear a protesters' camp on the fringes of the main gathering at Pearl roundabout had led to an influx of protesters to the city, determined to defend their turf. The police withdrew when they ran out of teargas canisters.

The sight of the police – many of whom are hired guns from Pakistan, Syria and other parts of the Sunni world – running from Shia demonstrators reawoke the fears of Gulf governments that the "party of Ali" was on the rise again. » | William Butler | Sunday, March 20, 2011

Saudi-backed Crackdown in Bahrain Exposes US Hypocrisy
THE SUNDAY TIMES (SRI LANKA): Although U.S. officials condemned Bahrain's use of deadly force against unarmed protestors on Wednesday, experts say the Obama administration is reticent to support the people because the Bahraini monarchy best serves U.S. regional interests. Critics accuse the U.S. of employing a double-standard - reluctant to oust the monarchy in Bahrain but more than willing to encourage Libyans to topple Moammar Gaddafi.

The U.S. is also hesitant to criticize Sunni ally Saudi Arabia, which invaded Bahrain on Tuesday at the request of Bahrain's Sunni royal family to quell Shiite protests. Mideast expert Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times can kick a door open in one's mind with his perspectives on these events, as he did on Thursday:

Let's imagine that neo-Napoleonic French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio "Bunga Bunga" Berlusconi decided to send North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops to help not the Libyan rebels but Muammar "King of Kings" Gaddafi to protect his "sensitive installations". After all, as Gaddafi assured the world, these rebels are "terrorists".

That's exactly what happened with the House of Saud sending armored carriers, tanks and 1,000 troops - part of "Peninsula Shield" forces - to Bahrain to repress an unarmed, civilian, domestic opposition (al-Qaeda or Iran "terrorists", take your pick) demanding political reform.

John Kerry said about the Libyan crisis that, "The US and world community must show they will not stand by while this thug Gaddafi uses air power to murder fellow Libyans." But why are Kerry and the world community willing to stand by as Bahrain's al-Khalifa family and the Saudis do the same? Escobar provides another mind-bending analogy: Imagine the outrage in the "international community" - and the calls to start carpet-bombing right away - if this was Iran invading Lebanon.

The U.S. fears it will lose its naval base in Bahrain should the government come under the control of Shiites - who, despite making up 70% of Bahrain's population, have lived under the thumb of Sunni royals for over 200 years. And such a move would tip the regional balance of power towards the Shiite Iranians. » | Michael Hughes | © Clarity Digital Group LLC | Sunday, March 20, 2011

How the Bahrain Regime Wants to Erase Its Bad Memories
TIME: The 45 helmeted men, armed with rifles, their faces masked, came for Ibrahim Sharif at 2 a.m. on Friday. They hopped the fence and entered his home, carted him off to jail — or Saudi Arabia — no one's really sure. "They were ringing the bell and shouting 'open, open, open,'" the dissident's wife, Fareeda, told TIME later that day. "Ibrahim told them to lower their guns, to calm down. They took him anyway. It took less than 10 minutes." The vans outside, she said, sported the insignia of Bahrain's national security forces.

Sharif, the leader of the Bahrain's opposition Waad party, was among several key anti-government activists arrested in a wave of pre-dawn raids on Thursday and Friday. At 4 a.m., on Friday, shortly after the raid at Sharif's home, the Waad headquarters was set on fire. All that remains of the two-story office building are charred walls and office furniture, gutted meeting rooms, giant shards of glass littering the floor. In a subsequent press conference, Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, dismissed the blaze as a random act of arson. But it comes as the regime of his cousin, King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa, stages an increasing ferocious crackdown against the Shi'ite majority, a campaign abetted by the unprecedented prescence of Saudi Arabian troops sent in to preserve the Sunni monarchy.

Until the end of last week, the political opposition had been rapidly been gaining steam, and support. Then, on March 11, the government let lose with the first of a series of increasingly ferocious responses. Now, Waad party leaders and even younger activists fear for their safety. On Friday morning, TIME received a text message from a protest organizer who said he had been warned that a crackdown on youth was underway. He said he had not left his [home?] for more than a day. "The streets are not safe," he texted, adding that his bank accounts had been frozen, phone tapped and every move monitored by police. » | Karen Leigh | SITRA | Friday, March 18, 2011

The Ancient Loathing between Sunnis and Shi'ites Is Threatening to Tear Apart the Muslim World
Chart: Mail Online
MAIL ONLINE: The bitter, bloody feud between the two branches of Islam, the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, has gone on for centuries and now this vicious sectarian strife is exploding again in Bahrain, threatening to cause an even greater conflict in the Middle East between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The implications of the worsening hostility for the world are nightmarish, for the entire region could soon be gripped by turmoil, bloodshed and economic meltdown. What was naively seen a few weeks ago as a fight between freedom and autocracy could descend into an epic clash between two Muslim ideologies, the savagery made all the worse by their long history of enmity.

The roots of the hostility between Sunni and Shia lie not in profound theological differences, but in the political intrigues that took place in the Muslim world in the 7th Century. When the Prophet Mohamed died in AD 632, the question of the succession to his leadership was dominated by family rivalries and disputes.

Essentially, there were four candidates to succeed as ‘caliph’, or leader, and one group in particular, which went on to form the Shi’ites, strongly favoured the claims of Ali, the grandson of Mohamed. Even the name, Shi’ite, derives from ‘party of Ali’. But three times in succession, Ali was passed over as each of the other candidates was chosen before him.

The opposition to Ali deepened the sense of anger among his supporters. Eventually, in this climate of tribal factionalism, Ali became the fourth caliph, though the indignation of his followers was provoked when he was then brutally assassinated.

The tribal feuding in the post-Mohamed era reached its climax at the Battle of Karbala in AD 680. This is really the key moment in the creation of the Shi’ite movement, the point at which the fissure was permanently established.

At the battle, Ali’s grandson, Hussein, was killed and, in the aftermath of his death, he came to be regarded by the Shi’ites as a martyr. The split between the Shi’ites and the opposing faction which took on the name Sunni, or ‘tradition’, has existed ever since that battle, causing endless sectarian trouble across the Middle East and the Arab world.The division soon acquired the trappings of theology. In turn, this has worsened the bigotry and hatred. » | John R Bradley | Friday, March 18, 2011

Bahrain Police Round Up Opposition Leaders and Take Over Hospital
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Bahrain’s police rounded up opposition leaders at gunpoint and took over a major hospital as it continued a violent crackdown on a protest movement despite international calls for restraint.

Security forces again clashed with Shia demonstrators as the Sunni monarchy sought to quell the month-long protest movement, which is calling for constitutional reform. The Bahraini capital Manama was tense but calm as troops in armoured vehicles funnelled traffic into checkpoints at key bridges and junctions.

Security forces took control of Salmaniya medical centre, Manama’s main hospital. Doctors and opposition figures alleged that wounded Shia protesters were denied treatment and staff were harassed.

Seven opposition figures were rounded up in raids including Hassan Mushaima, the leading Shia dissident, who had recently returned from exile in London.

They have been accused of contacting foreign states and inciting murder and vandalism, according to a statement from the island state’s military officials. » | Ben Farmer, Manama | Thursday, March 17, 2011

Bahrainis Cannot Be Subdued For Ever
THE GUARDIAN: The Saudi intervention has sectarianised the conflict even more, and thus may well have sealed the Bahrain regime's fate

While much of the world has been preoccupied with questions about a no-fly zone over Libya, Arab Gulf states have been busy establishing what might be called a "no-protest zone" in the Arabian peninsula.

Last week Saudi Arabia took an uncompromising stand against demonstrations on its own territory, declaring them both illegal and un-Islamic. Then, on Monday, it sent troops into Bahrain to assist the regime in quelling protesters there. The Saudis justified their action under a security agreement dating back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and known as Peninsula Shield.

This agreement, which involves the six Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar), resulted in the creation of a joint military force intended to protect its members against external threats. As a communique from the GCC interior ministers put it in 1982: "Any aggression on a member state is aggression against the other states, and facing aggression is considered a joint responsibility."

The statement added: "Interference from any entity in the internal affairs of one of the member states is interference in the internal affairs of all the nations of the council."

There was no suggestion at the time that Peninsula Shield forces would be used to protect unrepresentative Gulf regimes from "aggression" or "interference" by their own citizens – and yet this is what has now happened. Continue reading and comment » | Brian Whitaker | Thursday, March 17, 2011

Bahrain Violence Escalates
Protests in Bahrain have spread from the capital Manama towards other towns, including Sitra and Karrana. Several members of the country's opposition are said to have been arrested, and at least six people were killed after security forces moved in to crush anti-government demonstrations. The recent violence in the Gulf state has brought international condemnation, with countries as far apart as the US and Iran expressing concern. Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reports