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Bahraini Police Clash with Protesters Blocking Manama Highway

   VOA News  March 13, 2011
   An  anti-government  protester  reacts  to clouds of tear gas fired by
   police in Manama, Bahrain, March 13, 2011

Photo: AP

   An  anti-government  protester  reacts  to clouds of tear gas fired by
   police in Manama, Bahrain, March 13, 2011

   Bahraini  police  have  fired  tear  gas at anti-government protesters
   blocking  a  highway  into the capital's financial district, in one of
   the Gulf state's most violent confrontations since a deadly government
   crackdown on the opposition last month.
   Hundreds  of  protesters  occupied  the  highway  leading  to Manama's
   Financial Harbor and set up barricades, blocking workers from reaching
   their offices Sunday.
   Police  fired  tear gas and water cannons at the demonstrators in what
   the government called an operation to re-open the King Faisal Highway.
   The  government  urged the protesters to remain at their encampment in
   Manama's  Pearl  Square,  which police surrounded before pulling back.
   Journalists  say protesters showed them rubber bullets apparently also
   fired by security forces.
   Police  also  broke  up  a  protest by students at Bahrain University.
   Witnesses  say  hundreds  of  people  were  affected  by tear gas. The
   interior ministry says at least one policeman was injured.
   Thousands  of  mostly  Shi'ite  protesters  have  been occupying Pearl
   Square  for weeks and staging rallies outside government buildings and
   royal  palaces  to  demand  a  greater  political voice for the island
   nation's Shi'ite majority.
   Some of the demonstrators want Bahrain's minority Sunni rulers to give
   up  their  monopoly  on power, while others want the ruling al Khalifa
   family  to be ousted completely. Bahraini security forces killed seven
   protesters  in  street  battles  in  the days after the demonstrations
   began in mid-February.
   Bahrain's  Sunni rulers have offered a dialogue with the opposition on
   political reforms. But many Shi'ites say they will continue protesting
   in the streets until the government accepts their demands.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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