{"id":10895,"date":"2017-03-13T22:03:23","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T22:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=10895"},"modified":"2017-03-13T22:03:23","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T22:03:23","slug":"supporting-sheikh-isa-qassim-religious-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/supporting-sheikh-isa-qassim-religious-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting Sheikh Isa Qassim Religious Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahraini clerics have called on all the people of the Persian Gulf Arab country to show their solidarity with distinguished Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim, saying that the people’s unwavering support for him is the \u201creligious duty\u201d of all Muslims.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a joint statement released on Monday, a day before the High Criminal Court holds Qassim’s\u00a0final trial session,\u00a0Bahraini clerics said that \u201cthere is no doubt that defending senior cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim is in fact defending Islam and our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing\u00a0all \u201cfathers, mothers, boys and girls\u201d of the island country, the statement said that the Bahrainis were “in the most difficult chapter of history,” and called for\u00a0the continuation of the campaign against the Al Khalifah regime, which \u201ctargets your religion and your source of emulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clerics urged the citizens to express their strong protests against the regime until their final victory, saying that \u201cGod is with them\u201d and they \u201care able to defeat the despotic government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement called on the\u00a0people\u00a0who can travel to the northwestern village of Diraz, Sheikh Qassim\u2019s native village, on Monday evening to convene around his house and pray that God save him from the threats posed by the \u201ccowardly\u201d ruling regime.<\/p>\n

Thousands of people are now holding a protest\u00a0rally in Diraz in support of the senior cleric with a sit-in reported outside\u00a0Sheikh Qassim’s house.<\/p>\n

Bahraini police arrested several activists Monday, on the eve of the anticipated verdict in the trial of the\u00a0leading Shia\u00a0cleric, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

Police in the kingdom mounted checkpoints outside Shia\u00a0villages near Manama and made several arrests, witnesses and activists added.<\/p>\n

The authorities did not announce any arrests.The last trial session for Sheikh Qassim was scheduled in early February, but was postponed to February 26 amid fears of a surge in popular outrage. It was, however, postponed for a second time and was set to be held on March 14.<\/p>\n

The Manama regime has leveled charges of \u201cillegal fund collections, money laundering and helping terrorism\u201d against Sheikh Qassim,\u00a0who has strongly rejected them.<\/p>\n

Bahraini authorities stripped the cleric of his citizenship on June 20, 2016. They later dissolved the Islamic Enlightenment Institution, founded by him,\u00a0in addition to the opposition al-Risala Islamic Association. Sheikh Qassim, 77, is the spiritual leader of the country\u2019s dissolved opposition bloc, al-Wefaq National Islamic Society.<\/p>\n

Bahrain’s Public Prosecutor had earlier demanded capital punishment\u00a0for\u00a0Sheikh Qassim, his office staffer Mirza al-Dirazi and al-Wefaq\u2019s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Hussein al-Daihi.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A protester throws a glass bottle containing paint at a police armored personnel carrier during anti-regime clashes in the village of Sitra, south of Manama, on February 14, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thousands of anti-regime protesters have held demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the kingdom in mid-February 2011.<\/p>\n

They are demanding that the Al Khalifah dynasty relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.<\/p>\n

Manama has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of dissent.\u00a0On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were deployed to assist Bahrain\u00a0in its crackdown.<\/p>\n

Scores of people have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or got arrested as a result of the Al Khalifah regime\u2019s crackdown.<\/p>\n

Source: presstv.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bahraini clerics have called on all the people of the Persian Gulf Arab country to show their solidarity with distinguished Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim, saying that the people’s unwavering support for him is the \u201creligious duty\u201d of all Muslims. In a joint statement released on Monday, a day before the High Criminal Court holds …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10896,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10897,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10895\/revisions\/10897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}