Bahraini Activists Call for Fresh Protests as Authorities Lift State of Emergency

Bahraini activists called on supporters to hold pro-reform protests on Wednesday as a state of emergency imposed during a March crackdown on demonstrators was being lifted, one day after the king called for dialogue.

Shiites, who form a majority in the Sunni-ruled kingdom, began demonstrations on February 14 but were crushed by security forces the following month.

Authorities said 24 people, including four policemen, were killed in the unrest.

Under the state of emergency, decreed on March 15, security forces cracked down on Shiite villages, arresting hundreds of people, many of whom have been referred to special courts.

Bahraini activists called on the "February 14 Revolution Youth Coalition" Facebook page for protests to be held on Wednesday.

"The protests are to be in main streets and squares ... the movement must return to important places ahead of the imminent return, God willing, to Martyr's Square," said a post giving instructions for demonstrations and referring to the square where protests were centered before the crackdown.

The protests "will confirm that our revolution has not and will not end until our people, from the sons of both honored sects, take their right ... of self-determination," it said, referring to Sunnis and Shiites.

"Most of the Shiite villages have come up with a statement that they will participate" in the protests, an activist told Agence France Presse by telephone.

"Today they will do the protest heading to the main area from each village, and they said on Friday that they will march to the roundabout" -- the focal point of demonstrations from February to March, said the activist, who asked not to be named.

Rights group Amnesty International has called in a statement for Bahraini authorities to allow the planned protests to go ahead.

"Bahraini authorities must not make the same mistakes as in February and March, when largely peaceful protests were violently suppressed by government security forces," Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director, said in the statement.

"As the state of emergency is lifted, the authorities must allow people to peacefully exercise their rights to freedom of expression and association," Smart said.

On Tuesday, Bahrain's King Hamad, called for national dialogue beginning in July.

"I appeal to the executive and legislature to convene a dialogue of national consensus," the king was quoted by the official BNA news agency as saying.

He called for "all necessary steps to prepare for a serious dialogue, comprehensive and without preconditions, adding that it should "start from July 1."

After the February protests began, the king charged Crown Prince Salman with opening a national dialogue, a call that was dismissed by the opposition until various preconditions were met.

"Today marks the final day of the State of National Safety (state of emergency) in Bahrain and the military forces have begun their withdrawal from the streets," Prince Salman was on Tuesday quoted in a government statement as saying.

"As a nation, we face several challenges ahead as we seek to address issues of concern, while continuing efforts to prevent extremism and sectarianism taking hold in Bahrain."

But the prospects for dialogue were called into question by the reported interrogation of opposition leaders on Tuesday.

Al-Wefaq, the main Bahraini Shiite opposition group, said in a Wednesday statement that its head and three more of its high-ranking officials had been interrogated by a military prosecutor the day before.

In the statement, al-Wefaq said that Sheikh Ali Salman, Ibrahim al-Marzouk, Abdel Jalil Ali Ibrahim and Mohammed Yussef al-Mazaal had been interrogated for five hours on Tuesday.