Daily Mail:'A crime' Grand Prix
 

'A crime': Bahrain locals clash with police over impending controversial Grand Prix
By SIMON CASS
PUBLISHED: 17:10 GMT, 12 April 2013 | UPDATED: 17:10 GMT, 12 April 2013
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Tension has increased ahead of next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix as anti-government demonstrators chanted ‘Your race is a crime’ while clashing with police who fired tear-gas and sound bombs.
The flare-up on Thursday night, close to the capital Manama, comes in the wake of reports by campaign group Human Rights Watch that police have been rounding up pro-democracy activists in a bid to head off protests when the Formula One circus moves from China to the Gulf-state next week.
Witness claimed the clashes erupted when anti-riot police intervened to disperse the crowd and demonstrators responded with Molotov cocktails.

Thousands of anti-government demonstrators in Bahrain have joined a march that included breakaway protests against the scheduled Formula One race later this month.
The anger against the F1 event appears lower than last year but rights groups say security forces have expanded arrests and crackdowns near the track. Opponents of the race have vowed wider protests in the coming week.
The race is Bahrain’s premier international event. It was cancelled in 2011 as the Arab Spring uprising engulfed the Gulf kingdom. In 2012 it went ahead despite huge demonstrations.

Friday’s protest, authorized by the government, included a line of marchers more than 2-kilometers (1.2-miles) long.
Bahrain’s majority Shiites have pressed for a greater political voice on the Sunni-ruled island, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.


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