<p><br /> Several thousand people have turned out in Bahrain to bury three of those killed in a crackdown on protests in the capital.<br /> </p><p><br /> At least four people died as riot police drove activists from a makeshift camp in Pearl Square in Manama. More than 230 other demonstrators were wounded.<br /> </p><p><br /> There were cries of "The people want the fall of the regime", as the funeral processions moved through the village of Sitra, south of the capital.<br /> </p><p><br /> Inside the Sitra mosque, men washed the body of 22-year-old student Mahmoud Abu Taki, who was peppered with buckshot.<br /> </p><p><br /> "He told me before he went there, 'don't worry, father, I want freedom'," said his father, Mekki Abu Taki, 53.<br /> </p><p><br /> Police stayed away, although a helicopter circled overhead. On Tuesday, one protester was killed at the funeral of another.<br /> </p><p><br /> Britain's most revered Shia cleric, Sheikh Issa Qassem, described the Pearl Square confrontation as a "massacre" and said the government had shut the door to dialogue.<br /> </p><p><br /> He spoke to the gathering for Friday prayers at a mosque in a village in the northwest of the island.<br /> </p><p><br /> US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Bahrain on Thursday to use restraint and to keep its promise "to hold accountable those who have used excessive force".<br /> </p><p><br /> Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said the police action was necessary because his country had been on the "brink of a sectarian abyss".<br /> </p><p><br /> A decade ago Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa enacted a constitution allowing elections for a parliament with some powers, but royals still dominate a cabinet led by the king's uncle who has been prime minister for 40 years.<br /> </p><p><br /> Shias, in particular, still feel excluded from decision-making.<br /> </p>
