Hundreds of young people shouting anti-government slogans took to the streets in Bahrain on Sunday despite a heavy police presence to mark the fifth anniversary of an uprising calling for political change in the tiny island kingdom.
The 2011 protests in Bahrain, which is home to the US navy’s 5th fleet, were the largest of the Arab spring wave of demonstrations to rock the Gulf Arab states. They were driven by the country’s Shia majority with protesters demanding greater political rights from the Sunni-led monarchy.
Bahrain’s authorities crushed the protests after its allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, sent reinforcements. Many opponents of the government and rights activists remain behind bars and the site that was the focus of the protests is still sealed off by security forces.
The government committed itself to reforms but low-level unrest continues, particularly in Shia communities outside the capital, Manama. Small groups of activists frequently clash with riot police and bombs occasionally target security forces.
Last week, a spokesman for Amnesty International said that hopes for progress on human rights and holding Bahrain’s authorities to account for alleged abuses had faded over the past five years. It released a scathing report last year saying government reforms failed to end serious violations of human rights. In reply, the government said the report had significant shortcomings and glossed over recent institutional and legal measures.
On Sunday, demonstrators from the largely Shia community of Sitra, south of the capital, attempted to march but were turned back by police firing teargas, according to an Associated Press journalist who was there.
Protesters carried posters of Manama’s Pearl Square, the centre of the 2011 protests, while others held aloft portraits of jailed opposition figures. Some of the demonstrators hurled petrol bombs and paint bombs at police and blocked roads to their communities with iron rods and rubbish to keep security forces out. Witnesses reported clashes with police in other areas, too.
The interior ministry said in a statement on Sunday that several minors “who were manipulated into participating in riots and acts of vandalism” had been arrested the previous day.
Under questioning, those detained admitted they were involved in disrupting security, attacking police vehicles, committing arson and blocking roads, according to the statement. Their parents have been summoned and ordered to bring their children before juvenile prosecutors.
The anniversary protest coincided with celebrations marking the 2001 referendum on the country’s “national action charter”, which promised earlier reforms.
The government said it remained “fully committed to delivering sustainable progress, through stable and meaningful democratic development” but it warned that progress could not be impeded by “groupings seeking to reject all attempts at political advance in favour of narrow, short-term interests”.