World Crisis Online

Bahrain needs to address the concerns of people protesting peacefully and its security forces should act with more restraint, the UK said on Thursday.

In Washington, an Obama administration official said senior US officials would make telephone calls to Bahrain urging restraint.

Bahraini police stormed a protest camp in central Manama on Thursday, killing three people in an effort to prevent protesters from emulating Egyptians whose Tahrir Square protests help topple Hosni Mubarak.

William Hague, UK foreign minister, told parliament that he had spoken with his Bahraini counterpart after at least three people died when riot police used rubber bullets and tea gas to clear thousands of protesters from a key intersection in the capital Manama.

He said the British ambassador had also discussed the crackdown with the Bahraini interior minister.

“In both cases we stressed the need for peaceful action to address the concerns of protesters, the importance of respect for the right to peaceful protest and for freedom of expression.”

It was “essential” that those injured were able to receive immediate medical treatment, he said.

“We urge all sides to avoid violence and the police to exercise restraint and the Bahraini government should move quickly to carry out its commitment to a transparent investigation into earlier deaths and extend this to include today’s events and any alleged human rights abuses.”

Analysts and diplomats are alarmed at the dramatic escalation of tension, warning that Bahrain could descend into the civil strife between the largely Shia population and ruling Sunni elite that wracked the country in the 1990s. That was only ended by the succession of the current king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, in 1999 and the introduction of a constitutional monarchy in 2002.

“We are back a full decade in terms of sectarian relations,” one western diplomat said. “The Shia will be understandably enraged … There is a lot of sectarian poison flying around now.”