Ex-Members of Baath Party in Bahrain to Help Manama Crackdown on Dissent: Cleric

Rasa - The representative of Sheikh Isa Qassim, the spiritual leader of Bahrain’s Shiite majority, said the Manama regime’s security services have recruited remnants of Iraq’s Baath party to intensify the ongoing brutal crackdown on peaceful protests in the Persian Gulf island country.

News ID: 428202

Date: 16 March 2017 - 21:34

RNA - In an interview with the Tasnim News Agency on Wednesday, Sheikh Abdullah Daqaq, Sheikh Qassim’s representative in Iran, urged Bahraini people to remain vigilant in the face of the Al Khalifa regime’s news plots.

He added that the regime has recruited former members of Iraq’s Baath party, loyal to former dictator Saddam Hussein, to help in suppressing revolutionaries in Bahrain.

Peaceful protests should continue across the Arab country until all legitimate rights and demands of the nation are met, Daqaq further said.

Referring to Manama’s recent decision to postpone the trial of Sheikh Qassim, he said the regime adjourned the trial after the Bahraini nation and scholars expressed solidarity with Sheikh Qassim.

The trial session of Sheikh Qassim had been scheduled on March 14, but was adjourned until May 7.

It came as dozens of supporters of Sheikh Qassim continued their sit-in in front of the house of the cleric in Diraz, west of Manama, on Monday.

People also staged demonstrations in other cities across the Persian Gulf country on Sunday night in solidarity with the top Shiite cleric.

The Bahraini regime announced on June 20, 2016, that it had revoked the citizenship of Sheikh Qassim. The regime later said it would put the senior cleric on trial on charges of “illegal fund collections, money laundering and helping terrorism”.

Sheikh Qassim’s previous trials had also been postponed after the prominent cleric did not appear in court.

In the meantime, a sit-in that supporters of Sheikh Qassim have staged in front of his house in Diraz to protect him against the regime forces has remained in place for months.

Bahrain, a close ally of the US in the Persian Gulf region, has been witnessing almost daily protests against the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty since early 2011, with Manama using heavy-handed measures in an attempt to crush the demonstrations.

Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on the peaceful demonstrations.

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