BBC NEWS
19 February 2011 Last updated at 07:37 GMT 
Troops opened fire on demonstrators after the funerals for protesters killed on Thursday Bahrain's main Shia opposition group has rejected King Hamad's offer of national dialogue to end days of unrest in the Gulf state.
Senior members of the Wefaq bloc said the government must resign first and troops should be withdrawn from the streets of the capital Manama.Protests demanding greater political rights have been violently suppressed.
At least 50 people were wounded on Friday following the funerals for four protesters killed on Thursday.
"To consider dialogue, the government must resign and the army should withdraw from the streets," said Abdul Jalil Khalil Ibrahim, a leading Wefaq member.
Wefaq, which holds 18 of the 40 seats in the parliament, has pulled out of parliament in protest.
Restraint urged "What we're seeing now is not the language of dialogue but the language of force," AFP news agency quoted Mr Ibrahim as saying.
Mid-East unrest: Bahrain
- King Hamad, 61, has been in power since 1999
- Population 800,000; land area 717 sq km, or 100 times smaller than Irish Republic
- A population with a median age of 30.4 years, and a literacy rate of 91%
- Youth unemployment at 19.6%
- Gross national income per head: $25,420 (World Bank 2009)
Another Wefaq member, Ibrahim Mattar, said the authorities would have to "accept the concept of constitutional monarchy" before any dialogue began.
"Then we can go for a temporary government of new faces that would not include the current interior or defence ministers," he told Reuters news agency.On Friday, King Hamad Isa al-Khalifa asked his eldest son, Crown Prince Salman, to start a national dialogue to resolve the political crisis.
The prince, who earlier called on protesters to withdraw from the streets, was authorised to talk to all parties, a statement from the ruling house said.
US President Barack Obama has phoned King Hamad to urge restraint. Bahrain is home to the US navy's Fifth Fleet.
Bahrain's Shia majority has long demanded greater political representation from the country's Sunni ruling dynasty.
Troops and armoured vehicles have been stationed in central Manama since protesters were cleared out of Pearl Square early on Thursday.
The BBC's Caroline Hawley, in Manama, said on Saturday that she counted 24 armoured vehicles in the square.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12513606
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