“No to union. Bahrain is not for sale,” protesters chanted as they marched along a main road linking a number of Shia villages around the capital.
Others shouted “the country is not up for auction,” as the crowds responded to a call by the predominantly Shia opposition to march under the slogan “ready to sacrifice (ourselves) for Bahrain.”
Shia spiritual figure Ayatollah Issa Qassem, speaking at a mosque in Duraz, west of Manama, demanded that any proposed union of the two countries be submitted to a referendum.
The principal opposition group, Al-Wefaq, has made the same demand.
The people have the “right to oppose or approve this union,” Qassem said.
“Why prevent the people from expressing their fear, their opposition and their opposition and their legitimate peaceful resistance to a project that is being forced on them?” he asked.
The six members of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of the Sunni Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf, have been discussing a Saudi proposal that would lead toward some form of closer political union.
The first step in this process would be the union of Bahrain, which has a Shia majority, with Saudi Arabia.
