Iran Blasts Bahraini FM's "Baseless" Claims

Rasa - Tehran lashed out at Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa's "baseless" claims that a standing committee would be established in the Arab League against Iran, calling on al-Khalifa officials to opt for realism.

News ID: 426764

Date: 23 January 2017 - 16:37

Rasa - "Bahrain is entangled in an internal crisis and is after a foreign enemy to divert the public opinion from the issue and (makes) such remarks are repeated," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi told reporters in his weekly press conference in Tehran on Monday.

He underlined that if the Bahraini officials open their eyes to realities, they will understand that "such claims are baseless".

Qassemi advised the Bahraini rulers to restore the law and resolve their internal problems peacefully.

Since February 14, 2011, Bahrain has been the scene numerous demonstrations on an almost daily basis with people 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, 2016, 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, earlier this month, 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 in defiance of ongoing protest rallies across the kingdom. The rallies began before the execution when the outraged public marched across the capital Manama and the Northeastern villages of Nuwaidrat and al-Dair.

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