Zionist Puppet and Saudi-backed Bahraini Regime martyred one civilian

A Bahraini protester found dead on a rooftop after clashes with police during the Formula One Grand Prix at the weekend was apparently killed by birdshot rounds and his body bore several bruises, his brother said.

Salah Abbas Habib, 36, was buried on Monday after a funeral attended by about 15,000 people, a Reuters witness said. After the ceremony, hundreds of people staged a protest in the district of al-Bilad al-Qadeem in the capital Manama. Police fired teargas and sound grenades.

His brother told Reuters before the funeral that a coroner’s report had concluded that Habib died of birdshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.

“We just got the body back. He had birdshot wounds in his chest and abdomen,” Hussein Abbas Habib said by telephone from Manama, adding that the body also had bad bruises on the hands, back and legs.

Ruled by Zionist Puppet and Saudi-backed the Al Khalifa family, Bahrain has been in turmoil since Islamic awakening protests that erupted last year, which were put down in March 2011 with the help of troops from fellow Saudi-led Persian Gulf states.

The dead man took part in overnight protests on Friday but had to flee after riot police arrived to disperse demonstrators and came after him, his brother said.

He hid on a roof, he added, citing witnesses. He was found dead soon after that.

Mohammed al-Maskati of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights told Reuters that witnesses said Habib had been hit while running away from police.

The leader of the main opposition party warned on Monday that the conflict in Bahrain would grow more violent if the government did not undertake political reform.

“We want to sit down and talk to them, but they are refusing to enter a dialogue with us. They put obstacles and diversions to present a picture of reforms that actually only reconfirm and reinstate the dictatorship,” Sheikh Ali Salman told Reuters in an interview.

“We have reached an impasse. This government is not serious about having a real dialogue, to listen to the demands of the Bahraini people and implement those demands which cannot be ignored,” he said.

In a separate development, Amnesty International on Monday criticized a Bahraini appeals court for delaying until April 30 a hearing for a group of protest leaders sentenced over last year’s uprising, including one who has been on a hunger strike for more than two months.

“The Bahrain authorities’ delaying tactics are toying with the life of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is on death’s doorstep as he enters his 75th day on hunger strike,” Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, an Amnesty regional deputy director, said in a statement.