Page 63 - Records of Bahrain (7) (i)_Neat

Disturbances and strikes, 1953-1954 49

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where the c^owd, some three hundred strong, were swarming
round the Compound, domanding protection against the
Bahrain Government and the police. A delegation of seven
or eight from the crowd were inside the Agency demanding
that British soldiers police the town, that the Bahrain
police he disarmed,that the Sitra sentences he reviewed
by a British judge and that Shaikh Khalifah, Director

General of Public Security, he dismissed. On his
arrival, the Political Agent had the Agency Police Guard
disarmed and withdrawn inside the building, and spoke
with the delegation. The Political; Agent assured the

delegation of the concern of Her Majesty’s Government in
the good name of Bahrain and said he would report their
plea for protection. The delegation said they would
return the next day, but wore unable to persuade the
crowd to disperse. A section of them had meanwhile gone
to the Government Hospital, and taken away the bodies of

the three people killed, - all of them boys of about
seventeen - and brought them to the Agenoy. The rest
beoome hysterical at the sight of the bodies and broke
into the Agency in a mob and made their way up to the
Political Agent’s office, bearing tho bodies with them.
Someone in tho crowd took a spare Consular flag from
the hall and draped it over one of the bodies, It wos

quickly retrieved by the Agency boat man, The Political
Agent, with members of his staff, managed to shepherd
the people down the atairs and out of the building, and
then spoke to the crowd outside for an hour.
He repeated what he had said to the delegation and announced
/that

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