Iranian People Stage Protest Rally against Massacre of Shiites in Bahrain, Nigeria

Rasa - The Iranian people in the capital city of Tehran gathered in front of the UN offices on Wednesday to protest at the international body's silence on the execution and imprisonment of Shiite activists and clerics in Bahrain and Nigeria.

News ID: 426639

Date: 18 January 2017 - 20:56

RNA - The protesters chanted slogans against the recent execution of three Bahraini Shiite activists by the Manama regime as well as the situation of the Head of Nigeria's Islamic Movement, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, who is now in jail.

They also carried placards with the images of Sheikh Zakzaky, and blasted the UN and other international organization's silence on events in Bahrain and Nigeria and the killing of Shiite people and activists in the two countries.

The protest rally was planned and organized by the International Union of United Ummah (IUUU).

Bahrain executed three anti-regime activists over their alleged role in a 2014 bomb attack, amid widespread public anger against the death verdicts.

The regime in Manama carried out the death verdicts on Sunday in defiance of ongoing protest rallies across the kingdom. The rallies began before the execution on Saturday and lasted into Sunday, when the outraged public marched across the capital Manama and the Northeastern villages of Nuwaidrat and al-Dair after the morning prayers.

Since February 14, 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis, calling on the al-Khalifa 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. Hundreds of Bahraini activists have been imprisoned and suppressed.

On June 20, Manama authorities stripped Sheikh Qassim, a prominent Bahraini Shiite cleric, 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.

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.

Also, in Nigeria, Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife were taken into custody on December 14, 2015, after deadly clashes between the supporters of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) and Nigerian troops.

Nearly 350 members of the Shiite movement were killed in the clashes. The sheikh was brutally injured and his house was reportedly destroyed by the army in the incident.

After detaining Zakzaky, the Nigerian government stepped up its crackdown on the IMN.

A Nigerian court ruled in December that that Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife should be released unconditionally.

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