Anti-regime demo turns violent in Bahrain amid fears of more killings

Police and anti-regime protesters have clashed in the Bahraini village of Sanabis amid reports saying that more activists are facing execution in the kingdom.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Sanabis on Wednesday, holding placards and chanting slogans against the Al Khalifah dynasty.

The Bahraini police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.

The march came after Amnesty International said two Bahraini men were at the imminent risk of execution.

The death sentences against Mohamed Ramadhan Issa Ali Hussain and Hussain Ali Moosa Hussain Mohamed were upheld by Bahrain’s Court of Cassation in November 2015 and the verdicts were passed to the country’s king, the UK-based rights organization said.

They were accused of killing a policeman in a bomb explosion in the village of al- Dair in February 2014.

Amnesty international said the two men’s trial was grossly unfair and relied on “forced confessions” while the pair did not have access to their lawyers.

On January 15, Bahrain carried out its first execution after a more than six-year hiatus.

The executions of Muslim activists Sami Mushaima, Abbas Jamil Tahir al-Sami’ and Ali Abdulshahid al-Singace came after the Court of Cassation upheld the death penalties given to the trio over allegations of killing a member of Emirati forces in al-Daih in March 2014. The defendants had denied the charges.

Meanwhile, a video showing Bahrain using hooligans to suppress dissent has gone viral.

Initially released in April 2012, the video shows hooligans ransacking a store while Bahraini security forces look on and even film the incident without trying to stop the raid.

Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, has been rocked by a wave of anti-regime demonstrations since the popular uprising began in the country in February 2011.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others wounded or detained amid Manama’s crackdown on dissent and widespread discrimination against the country’s muslim people.