"A routine security patrol … in Qatif Governorate on Saturday evening came under fire from unknown assailants resulting in the injury of one security man who was taken to hospital," said the media spokesman for the Eastern Province police, quoted by the state news agency.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, is sensitive to any Shi’ite unrest in the Eastern Province because of what it says are concerns it could be fomented by non-Arab Shi’ite power Iran to destabilise the Gulf region. Tehran denies involvement.
Demonstrations there have continued sporadically since last March, and in November four people were killed, according to both the interior ministry and activists.
A resident of the village of Awamiya, which is in Qatif, said by email that a march on Saturday evening protesting the death of a local man had been violently dispersed by security forces and that he had later heard gunfire.
The Interior Ministry said the man was killed "in an exchange of fire" between security forces and protesters on Thursday.
Shi’ite activists say Qatif, a coastal oasis with farming and fishing villages, has been subjected to a heavy security presence, including checkpoints and armed patrols.
Earlier this month, an Interior Ministry spokesman said the authorities were seeking for questioning 23 people in Qatif.
He accused "troublemakers" of firing on police checkpoints, blocking roads and throwing petrol bombs, but described residents of the Eastern Province as "honourable" people, in an apparent attempt to calm sectarian tensions.
In October, the ministry said four security personnel had been injured in an attack on a police station in which guns were fired and petrol bombs thrown.
The government says there are around a million Shi’ites in the Eastern Province, but a report by International Crisis Group from 2005 said there were two million and a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks put the number at 1.5 million.
Saudi Arabia’s Shi’ites have long complained of widespread discrimination.
They say it is harder for them to get government jobs and university places or to establish centres of worship, that Shi’ite neighbourhoods receive less investment, and that they are publicly disparaged by Sunni clerics.
King Abdullah has included Shi’ites in a series of "national dialogue" meetings and appointed members of the sect to the advisory Shura Council.
However, activists say the moves have not gone far enough to improve their status.
Although both the main Shi’ite centres in the Eastern Province, Qatif and the inland al-Ahsa oasis district, are close to the kingdom’s main oil facilities, analysts say the unrest does not pose a risk to either crude production or export.
