Bahrain detains four more Shi’a clerics

Rasa – Officials in Bahrain have detained four more Shi’a clerics, as the regime continues to suppress political dissent throughout the country.

News ID: 422667

Date: 10 August 2016 - 14:44

RNA – The Bahraini daily Manama Post reported on Wednesday that Shaykh Imad al-Shu’lah, Shaykh Aziz al-Khazran, Shaykh Munir Ma’touq, and Sayyid Muhammad al-Ghurayfi had been arrested a day earlier pending interrogation.

Meanwhile, a court in Bahrain has also handed down 15-day prison terms to four other Shi’a clerics, identified as Shaykh Muhammad Jawad al-Shahabi, Shaykh Fadhil al-Zaki, Shaykh Ali al-Muhali, and Mulla Habib al-Dirazi.

The latter four clerics have been charged with organizing protests in the western village of Diraz.

Late last month, regime forces arrested Sayyid Majid al-Masha’al, a senior Shi’a cleric and the secretary of the country’s Muslim Scholars Council.

In January, a Bahraini court decided to dissolve the council, which included a number of prominent Bahraini Shi’a scholars, and ordered the liquidation of its assets.

The council had been founded in 2004 under the leadership of prominent Shi’a religious scholar Ayatollah Isa Qasim, who has himself been stripped of his citizenship and is being tried at a court over charges of promoting anti-regime dissent.

People in Bahrain have been staging protests since February 2011 to demand that the ruling Al Khalifah regime relinquish power.

The regime has been attempting to counter the protests by launching a heavy-handed crackdown on protesters and their leaders.

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