"We do not believe there is a serious will for dialogue"
After the Bahraini authorities shed the blood of its citizens where the Western and Gulf allies have stood helpless in front of its repressive practices, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa authorized his son Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad with holding a national dialogue with the opposition to resolve the Arab state's political crisis.
But the opposition group has rejected holding talks with the Bahraini regime until the government resigns and the army withdraws from the streets of the capital Manama before dialogue.
"What we're seeing now is not the language of dialogue but the language of force," Abdul Jalil Khalil Ibrahim, parliamentary leader of the Islamic National Accord Association (Al-Wefaq), said, referring to the government's crackdown on protesters Friday in which he said 95 people were wounded, three of them "clinically dead".
Sheikh Salman said that holding dialogue "in a climate of total calm" is the only way to solve the problems of the kingdom and added that "No issue can be excluded from that dialogue."
Bahraini police fired tear gas Saturday to disperse an anti-regime protest at Pearl Square in the capital Manama, shortly after the army pulled out of the area, an AFP journalist reported. Crowds of demonstrators arrived in the square by car or on foot shortly after military vehicles that had been deployed there after a deadly police raid withdrew. At least three demonstrators were arrested.
Soldiers near the Pearl roundabout in Manama, the Bahraini capital, used live fire on pro-democracy protesters yesterday after they were holding funerals for their martyrs who police killed on Thursday. They also opened fire on Bahrainis who were heading toward Manama's Salmaniyeh hospital in silence to visit the people who were injured and hospitalized the previous day.
The circumstances around the shooting at the Pearl roundabout, which occurred after nightfall on Friday, are not clear, officials at the Salmaniya Hospital say that several of the injured were with gunshot wounds to the head and chest.
Some doctors and medics on emergency medical teams were in tears as they tended to the wounded. X-rays showed bullets still lodged inside victims, Al-Jazeera reported.
Protesters described a chaotic scene of tear gas clouds, bullets coming from many directions and people slipping in pools of blood as they sought cover.
Barack Obama, the US president, discussed the situation with King Al Khalifa of Bahrain in a telephone call on Friday, asking him to hold those responsible for the violence accountable. He said in a statement that Bahrain must respect the "universal rights'" of its people and embrace "meaningful reform".
"I am deeply concerned about reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries and wherever else it may occur," he said. "The United States urges the governments of Bahrain, Libya and Yemen to show restraint in responding to peaceful protests and to respect the rights of their people."
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Saturday that political dialogue promised by Bahrain's crown prince "should begin without delay," adding she was "deeply concerned" by violence against protesters. "I urge the Bahraini authorities to respect fundamental human rights including freedom of expression and the right to assemble freely.
At the funerals for the five martyrs on Friday, many chanted slogans against Bahrain's ruling Al Khalifa family. They said that while they would earlier have settled for the prime minister being sacked, they were now demanding the fall of the entire ruling government, including the royal family.
As Friday prayers commenced, Sheikh Issa Qassem, a prominent Bahraini Shia Muslim religious leader, delivering his sermon in a northwestern village, described Thursday's violence as a "massacre".
