The accumulated frustration in addition to the Arab Spring pushed young people in Qatif to the street.
“The government was hesitant to use violence at the beginning,” al-Shayeb said. “Then they decided to use violence because they had nothing to offer.”
The government never called protesters in the Eastern Province “protesters.” The term they usually use to describe protesters is “rioters.” The government also says that security forces only open fire in self-defense when attacked.
On October 3, 2011, the Interior Ministry claimed that “rioters” in Awwamiya used molotov cocktails and machine guns to attack security forces. Those actions were “motivated by a foreign country that attempts to destabilize the nation’s security, and this is considered a breach of sovereignty,” according to a statement released by the ministry.
The statement, like all the other statements made by the Interior Ministry, did not name the foreign country but it is widely understood to mean Iran.
On Monday November 21, 2011, a protest was planned in Qatif. Ahmed al-Aradi, 18, said he was on the ground that day helping to organize it. “It was a peaceful protest,” he said. “We called for the release of prisoners and for justice in Bahrain.” The neighboring island has been going through its own uprising, where the majority Shia population has been demanding reform from their Sunni rulers. Bahiya al-Aradi, a cousin of Ahmed’s, was the first woman to die in the Bahrain protests.
Ahmed was driving a motorcycle at the front of the protest when he was shot from behind. The bullet entered from his side, going through his trunk and damaging his lung, spleen and stomach. He needed 45 days in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) before he finally recovered. Asked to to lift his shirt for the reporter to see the wound, he at first shyly hesitated but then lifted the shirt slightly to reveal a series of scars.
Nasser al-Mheishi, 19, was shot dead in earlier in November. His death certificate says the cause of death is a “gunshot.” The next day, an angry rally erupted to protest his death. A 24-year-old named Ali al-Fulfill was shot in the chest. A video uploaded to YouTube showed medics desperately attempting to resuscitate him. He died. Two more people were killed in following protests.
The death of protesters fuel more protests, as it has become clearly known during the Arab uprisings in the months before. More protests took place in Qatif. The angry protesters were no longer just asking for the release of prisoners and reform. They started chanting slogans like “Death to Al Saud.” They wanted justice.
The government released another statement on November 24, again accusing protesters of using violence and serving a foreign agenda.
Salman al-Dosary, editor of a newspaper owned by members of the royal family, likened the protesters to al-Qaeda terrorists and warned against any attempt to label what is happening in Qatif anything besides terrorism.
“Those who justify for Qatif terrorists who raised their guns against the nation and its people are not all that different from those who justified for the terrorist actions of al-Qaeda,” he wrote in the financial daily al-Eqtisadiah, shortly after being named editor of the newspaper.
Al-Dosary, echoing the Interior Ministry’s statements, called on the “rational ones” in Qatif to take a stance against the protests, or the riots, as they preferred to call them.
Few days later, five prominent Shia clerics in Qatif, led by Sheikh Hassan al-Saffar, released a brief statement.
“Demanding rights and lifting sectarian discrimination through peaceful means is a legitimate right for society, and we are confident that our dear sons and brothers refuse violence and the use of force and adhere to fruitful civilized methods,” the statement said. “Using violence is rejected and a grave danger.” The statement also called on the government to ensure that the security forces are exercising self-restraint.
That statement seemed to fall short of what the government probably wanted: an absolute condemnation of the protests. But it was extremely difficult for Shia leaders to condemn the protests after four of their own people were killed because doing so would simply mean losing all credibility in front of their constituency.
Young people in Qatif, like their peers across the region, were already losing faith in their leaders, including religious leaders like al-Saffar and the other four clerics who joined him in that statement.
Al-Saffar in particular was in a tough position. As the founder of the Islamic Reform Movement, he was one of the main leaders of the exiled Shia opposition in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Like al-Shayeb, he returned to the country after they reached a deal with King Fahad in 1993. Since then, he has played a mediating role between the government and the Shia community.
But that role has increasingly diminished in recent months as his moderate stance, telling protesters to keep it peaceful without directly supporting them while at the same time warning the government against the excessive use of force, won him no favors from neither side.
His influence on the young protesters has become minimal and he no longer had the government’s ear.
After one person was killed and several others wounded during a protest in early February 2012 he gave a Friday sermon in which he condemned the use of violence by protesters against security forces, but at the same time he condemned the security forces excessive use of force.
“Those are citizens, Muslims and humans,” he said. “Their souls are dear and their lives are precious. The state is responsible for their lives and blood.”
For the government, a statement like this one was unacceptable. The Interior Ministry had a strong response to al-Saffar’s sermon. An unnamed source at the ministry, said to be its official spokesman al-Turki, told the state news agency that security forces will confront the situation in Qatif “with determination and force and with an iron fist.”
Moderates like al-Saffar were needed no more, the government seemed to say. They threw him under the bus. The voices who called for reconciliation and engagement with the government have faded, giving way for voices less willing to talk nicely to the government, as the government has become less willing to talk with the Shia at all.
Sheikh Nemer al-Nemer, a cleric known for his fiery sermons and vehement criticism of the government, has become the spiritual leader for the young protesters. He did not simply support the protesters with powerful speeches from the pulpit of his mosque; he actually marched with protesters in the streets in Awwamiya as they chanted anti-government slogans.
If other Shia leaders in the past have chosen to engage with the government, the 53-year-old al-Nemer has always chosen confrontation. Authorities detained him for several days twice in 2004 and 2006.
When security forces clashed with Shia pilgrims in Madinah in February 2009, al-Nemer said in a Friday sermon that the “dignity of Shia is above the unity of this country,” a statement that was interpreted as a call for secession, and one that attracted criticism even from Shia activists.
Following the death of Saudi Crown Prince Naif last June, the firebrand al-Nemer gave a Friday sermon in which he responded to people who said “don’t speak ill of Naif because he is dead.” The late interior minister imprisoned and killed their children, al-Nemer said, so why shouldn’t the people in Qatif rejoice in his death?
“This is a man who spread fear and terror,” al-Nemer added. “Why shouldn’t we rejoice?”
