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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Fires Started To Protest Execution

Associated Press

Opposition activists started small fires in villages outside Manama on Saturday to protest the March execution of a man who killed a policeman, witnesses said.

Police later defused six small explosive devices planted in a shopping center in the heart of the Bahraini capital, security sources said.

Witnesses to the fires said scores of police in riot gear blocked entrances to several villages, including Sanabis, Abu Sib’a, Daih and Bani Jamra - all centers of dissent - as fire engines rushed to the scene.

The blockade was later lifted, they said.

Saturday’s protests marked the 40th day of Muslim mourning following the execution, which the opposition claims was murder.

The Shiite Muslim-led opposition has been waging a 17-month campaign for political reforms. They are demanding the restoration of parliament, dissolved in 1975, and job opportunities for Shiites, who form a slight majority of the Gulf state’s 500,000-strong population but are treated as an underclass.

The government is dominated by members of the mainstream Sunni sect of Islam.