MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain on Friday tore down the defining monument, the pearl at the center of Pearl Square, in a symbolic end to the popular protests put down by the government. The official news agency described the razing as a facelift.
It was one more strike at the movement, part of a chain of events that, in a matter of days, turned Bahrain from a symbol of hopeful pro-democratic protest into one of violent repression.
On Friday, the family of Ahmed Farhan, 30, who was killed on Tuesday by security forces in Sitra, an island south of the capital, received the body of their son, with its shotgun pellet wounds to the back and gaping hole in the skull. The family had been trying to bring him home to this activist Shiite village and bury him here, but permission was withheld.
In Bahrain, the Arab spring turned to winter in less than a week. Martial law was declared on Tuesday. It is now illegal to hold rallies. Tanks remain outside the central hospital and Saudi troops are here as back-up. Still, on Friday the Farhan family buried their son and, despite the ban on protests and gatherings, some 5,000 people helped them do it in their home village of Sitra. The village, once an island, is now linked to the mainland by landfill and causeway. It turned into a sea of raised fists and tearful wailing, piety and political indignation, the core of what has been driving the Bahraini protests since mid-February.
The Farhan family is poor, like many in this village, and like many of the 70 percent of the country that is Shiite. Ahmed Farhan, who never married, lived with his family in a ramshackle structure around a courtyard, having lost his job as a fisherman some years ago after harbor construction made fishing impossible. He was taking part in a protest demonstration when he was killed.
The battle to turn this kingdom into a democracy has also been a battle of class and ethnicity — poor majority Shiites against the Sunni elite and royal family. It is also an international struggle, with Saudi Arabia on one side, Iran on the other.
Mr. Farhan’s body arrived hours after it was scheduled and came in a van owned by a local aluminum kitchen supply company. The authorities had claimed they had no driver to bring it back so the family had to ask neighbors at the last minute for it to be fetched.
The body was swathed in white cloth, the face exposed, the skull covered in netting to hide the terrible wound. The enormous bullet removed from his head was shown around. As the body was slid from the van, there were shouts of “God is great.” It was washed and placed in a coffin draped in the Bahraini flag and covered with his photographs. Posters of the martyr were widely distributed.
“There is no god but God,” those watching repeatedly chanted.
Prayers were recited outside the mosque attached to the cemetery. Hundreds of men crowded the main street. Women, draped nearly uniformly in black, stood to one side.
After praise of God and his prophet, the leader turned to politics. “Down with the Khalifas!” he shouted of the Bahraini royal family, to thunderous repetition. “Occupation forces out! Death to the Saudis! Death to Khalifa! Freedom for Bahrain!”
They added: “With our soul and our blood, we will redeem you, o martyr.”
A military helicopter circled high in the sky and at the village entrance, troops and tanks awaited trouble. None came.
Shiite preachers at noon prayer across this island kingdom called for ongoing nonviolence. “The peaceful approach has been our choice since day one,” Sheik Issa Qassem, the top Shiite clergyman here, said in his sermon. But rage and fear are spreading fast and nonviolence is likely to be a victim.
Basel Hamad, a 35-year-old information technology manager, lives in Sitra as did his parents and grandparents and he took part in the funeral march on Friday. He has three daughters and is wondering whether to move to Europe given what has happened in recent days.
“When this started, I thought the king would accept the changes,” he said. “Now the people are very angry.”
Ali Hbel, a taxi driver injured in the police action at Pearl Square on Wednesday, was also at the funeral. He showed his splintered arm from the injury and pointed simultaneously at the coffin of Mr. Farhan and said, “This is not going to go for free.”

Nadim Audi contributed reporting.