Bahraini Regime Blocks Shia Friday Prayers for 5th Consecutive Week
According to Mirat-ul-Bahrain website, the Al Khalifa forces prevented Sheikh Muhamamd Sanqur, the Friday prayers leader, and many of the worshippers coming from the capital Manama from entering the village.
The worshipers then staged a demonstration in front of the mosque to express their outrage over the measure. They chanted slogans against Al Khalifah dynasty, calling for an end to the regime's sectarian discrimination against them.
It comes as the ruling regime presses ahead with its heavy-handed crackdown against prominent figures and followers of the majority religious community in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.
Last week, too, Bahraini regime forces blocked all roads leading to the Imam Sadiq Mosque in Diraz, situated about 12 kilometers west of the capital, preventing Muslims from converging at the place of worship.
In recent weeks, Bahraini authorities have either arrested or summoned 10 Shia clerics.
Bahraini Shia clerics, in a statement titled "Those Barred from Praying” released on June 16, condemned the Manama regime’s attempts to restrict Shia Muslims’ freedom of religion and belief, describing the situation in the country as "deplorable.”
The statement said that the Al Khalifah regime’s systematic suppression of Bahraini Shia Muslims had reached its highest level ever, and members of the kingdom’s largest religious community felt insecure and faced threats of arrest and prosecution if they sought to observe their religious rituals, primarily Friday and other congregational prayers.
On June 20, Bahraini authorities revoked the citizenship of distinguished Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassem less than a week after suspending the country’s main opposition bloc, the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, and dissolving the Islamic Enlightenment Institution, founded by Sheikh Qassim, and the opposition al-Risala Islamic Association.
Anti-regime protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis since February 14, 2011, calling on the Al Khalifah regime to relinquish power.
Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — themselves repressive Arab regimes — were deployed to the country in March that year to assist the Manama government in its crackdown on peaceful and pro-democracy rallies.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in Manama's crackdown on the anti-regime activists.
