Building torched as Bahrain Shiites protest executions

DUBAI — Authorities in Bahrain said Monday a municipal building was set ablaze as fresh violence erupted over the executions of three Shiites convicted of a deadly bomb attack on police.

Tensions in the kingdom have been on the rise since the three men were executed by firing squad on Sunday.

A municipal building was torched overnight Monday in Shamalia, in the Shiite area of Aali, south of the capital Manama, the interior ministry said.

“According to initial reports, the fire was intentional,” the ministry said on Twitter, adding that it had been brought under control.

Protests broke out on Sunday after the executions, reportedly the first carried out in Bahrain in six years.

Demonstrators blocked roads with burning tyres and threw firebombs, and police retaliated by firing tear gas, according to posts on social media.

The confrontations continued overnight, with dozens of men and women marching through the streets of the village of Sanabis, according to witnesses.

Demonstrators tried to reach the main street of Sanabis, the hometown of the three executed men, but were blocked by security forces.

‘Dark day’ for Bahrain 

Sanabis was the closest Shiite village to the former Pearl roundabout which was the epicentre of a month-long Shiite-led uprising that the security forces crushed in mid-March 2011.

Protests turned violent overnight in several other Shiite villages, according to other witnesses. Bahrain’s high court last week upheld the death sentences against the trio convicted of a bomb attack in March 2014 which killed three policemen, including an officer from the United Arab Emirates.

Seven other defendants received life terms.

Shiite-dominated Iran and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah strongly condemned the executions.

Bahrain is a strategic ally of the United States and home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Authorities have dissolved Salman’s Al Wefaq movement, once the largest bloc in Bahrain’s parliament, and repeatedly arrested and detained other opposition leaders, including Nabeel Rajab, the founder of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.