Thousands of Bahrainis have launched what they said would be a week of daily sit-in protests in a Shiite village to commemorate an uprising crushed a year ago, witnesses said on Saturday. They said the protesters gathered on Friday at a rallying point renamed “Freedom Square” in Al-Muqsha village, about seven kilometres (four miles) west of Manama. They waved Bahraini flags and banners calling for the overthrow of the ruling Sunni Al-Khalifa family. “Down with Hamad,” some banners read, referring to King Hamad. Organisers said the rally would last for a week and take place every afternoon until midnight. “Bahrainis will not go back on their demands,” a leading opposition figure from Bahrain’s main Shiite opposition formation Al-Wefaq, Abduljalil Khalil, told the gathering. The Shiite-led opposition demands constitutional changes that would reduce the power of the ruling dynasty. Tensions have remained high in Bahrain since a deadly crackdown last year after a month of Manama street protests.
