Saudi security forces clashed with Shia protesters in the kingdom’s oil-rich east killing one person and wounding three, the interior ministry and witnesses said Friday. A “security forces’ patrol was carrying out its normal duties in (the Shia village of) Al-Awamiya late on Thursday when it was attacked with a petrol bomb that left it in flames,” said a ministry spokesman in comments published by state news agency SPA. When security forces “tried to control the fire, they were shot,” it said, adding that Saudi forces responded.
“The exchange of fire left two of the assailants wounded. They were taken to the hospital where one of them later died,” said the ministry spokesman. Witnesses said earlier that security forces opened fire with live rounds after protesters hurled stones at one of their vehicles in Al-Awamiya in the Qatif region. Activists said Issam Mohammed, 22, was killed by multiple bullet wounds. Three other people were wounded by security force fire, one of them a man driving through a checkpoint at the entrance to the village, the activists said.
Security forces sealed off the village after the clashes, witnesses said. The clashes came after demonstrations were held in four Qatif region villages to call for the “release of political detainees, reform and an end to sectarian discrimination,” one activist told AFP on the condition of anonymity. Protests erupted in the Eastern Province in March when members of the kingdom’s Shia minority took to the streets to condemn Saudi military intervention against Shia-led pro-democracy demonstrations in neighbouring Bahrain.
