AMMAN, Jordan — Riot police officers stormed a pro-democracy rally here in the Jordanian capital on Friday, leaving one man dead, injuring scores of other people and dispersing with water cannons a 1,000-person tent camp set up the previous day to resemble Tahrir Square in Cairo.

Witnesses said the violence — the worst since demonstrations began in Jordan in January — came after some 200 pro-government counterdemonstrators using sticks and rocks attacked the protesters, who fought back. The riot police were called in, and they broke up the fighting as well as the tent camp.

The Interior Ministry said the man who died in the fighting, Khairi Jamil Saad, 56, an unemployed father of five, had suffered a fatal heart attack. But his son Nasser Saad said in an interview that the riot police had attacked and beaten them both. He said he saw his father’s body at the hospital. His teeth were broken, and he had signs of being beaten on his hands, legs and ears.

At least 100 injured demonstrators were at the hospital, and protest organizers said four of them were later arrested by the police.

Three witnesses said they saw distinct evidence of collusion between the pro-government demonstrators and the riot police. After the tent camp was destroyed, they said, the two groups sang and celebrated together.

The tent camp had been set up by a new organization calling itself the March 24th Movement because of its plan to camp out from Thursday until demands for reform were met, as had occurred in Tahrir Square. The organizers were calling for an end to corruption and autocracy and greater economic equality.

As discontent has rolled across the Arab world in recent months, King Abdullah II of Jordan fired his cabinet and ordered his new prime minister, Marouf al-Bakhit, to begin serious electoral reforms and reach out to all elements of Jordanian society, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the reform process has not moved quickly, and pro-democracy forces have grown impatient. Jordan is a close American ally, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates visited King Abdullah on Friday, flying to his palace and back by helicopter, with no direct contact with the political unrest.

On Friday night, Prime Minister Bakhit appeared on television and condemned what had happened at the democracy rally, saying it gave Jordan a poor image.

A leader of the new movement, Khaled Khalaldeh, said he and his colleagues would meet on Saturday to decide how to proceed after the destruction of their tent camp. A Muslim Brotherhood leader, Murad Adaileh, called for the resignation of the government and the dissolution of the riot police.

In another part of Amman, some 3,000 loyalists to the king waved his portrait and chanted their willingness to sacrifice their lives and souls for him.

In other parts of the Arab world, notably Bahrain and the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, antigovernment demonstrations took place after Friday Prayer. In Bahrain, which remains under martial law after the king called in Saudi troops to help him quell unrest by mostly Shiite demonstrators, small protests broke out in the capital, Manama, and in nearby villages. The police entered the villages shooting tear gas.

The leading Shiite opposition group, Wefaq, said that a 71-year-old man died from tear gas asphyxiation after the police blocked exit roads, and he was unable to get to the hospital in time. The Bahraini Interior Ministry later said the man’s death was from natural causes and was not related to tear gas. Shiites make up some 70 percent of the population of Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni royal family and elite.

The protesters in Bahrain had set up their own tent camp, also modeled on Tahrir Square, for a month in Pearl Square. But the police destroyed it this month and took down the 300-foot sculpture at the square’s center. Tanks and checkpoints have been set up throughout Manama as part of the crackdown, and the strategic island, home to the American Navy’s Fifth Fleet, remains tense.

In eastern Saudi Arabia, several hundred Shiites held sympathy protests for Bahrain, demanding the release of detainees and calling for the removal of Saudi troops from Bahrain, according to the Saudi news agency Rasid. It added that the protesters waved Bahraini flags and held marches in two cities in the province of Qatif. Like the majority Shiites in Bahrain, the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia has long complained of discrimination.

Ranya Kadri reported from Amman, and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem. Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Amman.

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