Every so often a protester would peel off from the crowd and shake the hands of visiting journalists, thanking us for being there in person and imploring us to help them get their message out.
We had been told to see with our own eyes what the situation was in Bahrain. So there we were; at a protest march in Al Dair, a small Shi’ite village north east of Manama, near the airport. It was the largest of several such protests yesterday.
This was the acceptable face of the opposition. While tear gas was used to disperse protesters armed with Molotov cocktails during Monday’s march in Salmabad, yesterday’s in Al Dair was peaceful, almost joyful.
But there was an edge. Rubber bullets, remnants from previous clashes, lay scattered about. A 13-year-old girl, Reem, whose father was killed in police custody last year – allegedly beaten to death – came up to introduce herself. She was with her uncle, a politician in Bahrain’s main opposition party, Al Wefaq, which has called for seven days of protest to capitalise on the presence of F1.
Our guide for the day, Dr Ala’a Shehabi, an activist who met with F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone in London earlier this year in an effort to have the race cancelled, told us about some of the other faces in the crowd; a nurse, Rola Alsaffar, who was allegedly beaten by police last spring after helping to treat injured protesters; a doctor, Huda Alawi, whose husband is a prominent local lawyer representing hundreds of protesters in jail.
