Bahrain feels like a “nation under occupation” following the second anniversary of the start of the uprising there, as mercenary police hassle drivers at checkpoints and fill the air with tear gas, reports Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a fellow at the Nation Institute.

After a policeman shot and killed a teenager at close range last week, thousands of people attended his funeral, chanting “Down with Hamad,” the country’s US-backed ruler, and “I’m the next martyr,” he told Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now!

—Alec Luhn

Sharif Abdel Kouddous discusses the recent unrest in Bahrain in his upcoming article for The Nation, “Scenes from a Bahraini Burial.”