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Amateur video footage of security forces shooting and beating protesters has spread across the internet and fueled fury in predominantly Shiite Iraq and in Iran, where a senior cleric on Friday urged Bahraini protesters to keep going until victory or death.
Thousands of Bahrainis have defied a government ban on public gatherings to mourn the death of a protester killed on Tuesday in Sitra just hours after the king declared martial law.
Shiites account for 70 per cent of the tiny island’s half-million people but they are widely excluded from high-level posts and positions in the police and military of the country, which is home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet.
- Reporting from the AP and all images from the Press Association
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