Opposition Figure Blasts Human Rights Advocates for Keeping Mum about Long Siege of 20,000 Bahrainis in Diraz

Rasa - A prominent dissident leader lambasted the international community's silence on the Bahraini government's siege of 20,000 people in the town of al-Diraz which hosts the house of senior cleric Sheikh Issa Qassim.

News ID: 426348

Date: 07 January 2017 - 22:06

RNA - "The Muslim town of al-Diraz in Bahrain has been under the al-Khalifa regime's siege for months and those who claim to support human rights have kept mum," Hussein Abdollah told FNA on Saturday.

"Nearly 20,000 defenseless citizens in al-Diraz which is the hometown of the Shiite Bahraini leader have been under the al-Khalifa army's siege for 205 days," he added.

Abdollah underlined that the residents of al-Diraz are ordinary Bahraini citizens who have been besieged for defending Sheikh Qassim.

On June 20, Bahraini authorities stripped Sheikh Qassim of his citizenship, less than a week after suspending the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, the country’s main opposition bloc, and dissolving the Islamic Enlightenment Institution founded by Qassim, and the opposition al-Risala Islamic Association.

Over the past few weeks, demonstrators have held sit-in protests outside Sheikh Qassim’s home to denounce his citizenship removal.

Since February 14, 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis, calling on the al-Khalifah rulers to relinquish power.

In March that year, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, themselves repressive Arab regimes, were deployed to the country to assist Manama in its crackdown on protests.

Bahrain has also sentenced Sheikh Ali Salman, another revered opposition cleric, to nine years in prison on charges of seeking regime change and collaborating with foreign powers, which he has denied.

Sheikh Salman was the secretary general of the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, which was Bahrain’s main opposition bloc before being dissolved by the regime last month.

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