Okay, another compilation of youtube videos today, following on from my last one about police abuse.

Several days back, a reporter for CBS news wrote about how while covering protests in Bahrain, riot police fired pellets at her car for no apparent reason. She says they later tracked down the car, smashed the windows and slashed the tyres. At a press conference later, she questioned the Bahraini Foreign Minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, about why the police would behave that way. The FM was unable to give a real response, but insisted there was no way that the police could have been given clear orders to fire on her car.

Now I'm not sure about randomly firing on cars. But given the videos we've been seeing posted over the last few weeks, it certainly is not out of the ordinary for the riot police to go around smashing the windows and slashing the tyres of civilian cars in residential neighbourhoods. In fact, the consistency with which it is done would seem to suggest that this  is being done on orders from above. Either that, or all the riot policemen in Bahrain have turned into radical environmentalists who want to encourage the rest of the country to start riding bicycles instead of polluting the atmosphere.

In any case, it seems that His Excellency the Foreign Minister is unaware of this practice, so for his benefit I present these videos:

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And here are a pair of photos from the 16th of March when the police was clearing Pearl Roundabout of protesters. If you look at the first photo, the car is in intact and posing no apparent threat. Go to the second one and you will see that the windows (not one, but all) are smashed, and a riot policeman is poised to keep smashing:


See the full gallery on Posterous
I hear car repair workshops in Bahrain are doing great business these days..

Update June 12:

Here's a few new videos from March 16 at Pearl Roundabout showing the same:







This one purportedly shows military troops also getting on the action:



And one from Al Eker village:



Update August 11:

Here's another new video from Al Eker. It's done ever so casually:



Update Sep 26:

Yet more videos, its never ending: