High security in Bahrain as poll stations open for voting

Bahrainis continue to protest for democratic rights six months on Voting for the Federal National Council (FNC) elections has begun at 13 polling stations across the UAE early Saturday morning, according to the Dubai-based Gulf News. Registered voters from all over the UAE will cast their ballots to elect 20 of the 40-member Federal National Council (FNC). The rest will be selected by the Emirates' rulers. A total of 450 candidates, including 84 women, are contesting the election. Men dressed in traditional Emirati white gowns and women wearing black abaya cloaks trickled into a large polling centre at a conventions complex in Dubai. They chose their preferred candidates using electronic terminals in semi-private booths, before depositing the printed out votes in transparent boxes. Polling stations opened at 08:00 (0400 GMT) and will close at 7:00 pm. Today’s election is the second in the history of the UAE and the first in terms of the strength of the electoral college. Some 129,000 Emirati citizens are expected to elect 20 representatives out of 450 candidates, including some 85 women, across the Gulf state whose leadership has promised a gradual political participation. The size of the electoral college has significantly been enlarged after it included only 6,600 voters in 2006, the first-ever elections since the FNC was formed in 1972, a year after independence from Britain. Running in the FNC polls is not open to all UAE citizens as candidates should come from within the lists of eligible voters named by the respective ruler of each of the seven emirates of the UAE. Those rulers will also name the other half of FNC members.

Meanwhile, Bahraini police are staging a massive show of force across the Gulf island kingdom for highly charged parliamentary elections that Shiite-led opposition groups have vowed to boycott. Riot police have set up checkpoints and patrols in key areas. The heaviest security is around Pearl Square in the capital Manama, which was once the hub for Shiite protesters demanding greater rights from the ruling Sunni monarchs.
Saturday’s elections will fill 18 parliament seats abandoned by Shiite lawmakers to protest the harsh crackdowns. Main Shiite factions have vowed to boycott the voting in a message of defiance. Shiites are the majority in Bahrain, but claim they face widespread discrimination. Protests began in February inspired by other Arab uprisings.

Clashes Friday between Bahraini security forces and protesters left five policemen wounded and dozens of demonstrators suffering from tear-gas inhalation, the authorities and activists said.
"Five policemen were injured in clashes today (Friday), with one of them sustaining second degree burns from a homemade incendiary device," the ministry of interior said in a post on social networking website Twitter. Witnesses said that hundreds of anti-regime protesters marched in small groups from the Shiite village of Sanabis towards Pearl Square, symbol of the protests earlier this year. "Down Hamad," they chanted, referring to Bahrain's King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa, whose Sunni dynasty has ruled the Shiite majority kingdom for decades.

Security forces used "shotguns, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowds," said Mohammad Mascati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights. "Dozens suffered from breathing difficulties due to tear-gas inhalation and were taken to homes for treatment out of fear from being arrested at hospitals," he told AFP.
The ministry of interior said only tear gas was used. "Security forces have not used shotguns, rubber bullets or birdshot in any clashes today. Only tear gas has been used," it said.

Security forces had deployed heavily in central Manama and surrounded Pearl Square with barbed wire barricades to prevent the protesters -- including some 50 women -- from approaching, witnesses said. Demonstrators camped out in Pearl Square between mid-February and mid-March until security forces, boosted by a Saudi-led Gulf regiment, drove them out in a deadly crackdown that demolished a monument there. The demonstrators on Friday were responding to online calls by activists to protest Saturday's by-elections, which were boycotted by the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq.