The protesters had staged a new protest rally on Sunday to slam the Bahraini Interior Ministry for refusing to hand over the body of a dead protester, Abulaziz al-Abbar.

Al-Abbar, 27, died on April 18, after 55 days in a coma due to injuries he suffered during crackdown on a rally held in late February in Sa’ar, a residential area west of Manama. According to Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights, security forces had fired tear gas canisters and birdshots at Abbar.

On May 1, the country’s main opposition party al-Wefaq National Islamic Society said that the Manama regime had “misused” the state security forces in favor of “narrow political and sectarian interests” amid the kingdom’s political crisis.

Since mid-February 2011, thousands of protesters have held numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling on the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.

In March 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were called in to help Manama quash the anti-regime protests.

Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.

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