Bahrain Crackdown: Regime Tightens Siege around Ayatollah Isa Qassim’s Home as His Health Worsens
Local Editor
Bahraini security forces extensively surrounded the house of prominent Shia cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim, whose health condition is severely deteriorating.
According to officials from the country's dissolved al-Wefaq party on Sunday, Sheikh Qassim is in immediate need of medical treatment.
In further details, Sheikh Qassim has been under regime-imposed house arrest that dates back to six months ago, losing around thirty kilograms of his weight. Ayatollah Qassim now is suffering from severe internal hemorrhage, according to the doctor who examined his situation under tight security measures. The doctor further warned that Sheikh Qassim is in urgent need of several surgical operations to treat the ongoing bleeding, and that the surgeries require the presence of a team of specialized doctors and couldn't be carried out at home.
The seventy-year old cleric, however, has been resisting all the cruel and inhumane circumstances, refusing any treatment from untrusted sides that are most probably plotting to kill him instead of treating his ailing body.
Last year, Bahraini authorities dissolved the country's main Shia opposition group, al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, as well as Islamic Enlightenment Society [Tawiya] and al-Risala Society.
Sheikh Qassim, Wefaq's spiritual leader, was stripped of his citizenship in June last year over accusations that he had used his position to serve foreign interests and promote sectarianism and violence. The cleric was handed a suspended one-year prison term and ordered to pay a fine.
The ruling against the prominent Shia cleric also sparked widespread protests and condemnations.
Bahrain has been the scene of anti-regime protests on an almost daily basis ever since a popular uprising began in the country in February 2011.
People have been demanding that the Al Khalifah dynasty relinquish power and let a just system representing all Bahrainis be established.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others wounded or detained amid Manama's crackdown on dissent and widespread discrimination against Bahrain's Shia majority.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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