With Saudi troops now in the country to support King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, Bahrain has taken on the likeness of a police state. There have been mass arrests, mass firings of government workers, reports of torture and, on Sunday, the forced resignation of the top editor of the nation’s one independent newspaper.

Emergency laws give the security forces the right to search houses at will without a warrant and dissolve any organization, including legal political parties, deemed a danger to the state. Even two members of the national soccer team were arrested this week, despite apologizing on television for attending antigovernment rallies last month.

In response, a once joyous but splintered opposition has been forced to come up with new strategies. The intensity of the repression is pushing some toward militancy, while others are holding back, at least for now.

“People are in shock because of the intensity of the crackdown,” said Aqeelah Wahab, the daughter of Abdul Wahab Hussein, the leader of a militant Shiite party, Al Wafa, who was pulled out of his home and imprisoned last month. She is an activist herself. “With this government, you don’t know what they will do. The people are taking a break to see what the government will do with the prisoners.”

There have been signs of wavering. Protest leaders who have not been imprisoned keep their followers informed by Facebook and Twitter, but some recent calls to action have received little response. The 10 Shiite members who protested by quitting the appointed Advisory Council, the upper house of Parliament, have returned to their desks in recent days, as have several Shiite judges who had stepped down.