Bahraini court summons top scholar

Regime forces in Bahrain have handed a warrant to prominent Alim Sheikh Isa Qassim to appear in court, after clashing with his supporters.

 

Bahraini police forces used tear gas against Sheikh Qassim’s supporters around his residence in the western Diraz region of the country in a brutal effort to gain access to the doorway of the house on Wednesday.

 

The supporters of the cleric, who have been camping out at the area as a protective measure for his safety, called on more people from the local population to join them following the police raid.

 

The sit-in protest outside the cleric’s home entered its 185th day on Wednesday.

 

The sit-in protest began on June 20, when Bahraini authorities stripped the 79-year-old cleric of his citizenship, less than a week after suspending the country’s main opposition party, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, and dissolving the Islamic Enlightenment Institution — founded by the senior cleric — and another opposition Islamic association.