Bahrain Shiites protest MP insults to top cleric
1 day ago
MANAMA (AFP) — Tens of thousands of Shiite Bahrainis held a protest on Thursday against remarks deemed offensive made by a Sunni MP against the country’s leading Shiite cleric, an AFP correspondent said.
The demonstrators led by Shiite clerics marched peacefully for around two hours in Shiite districts west of Manama holding banners saying: “We don’t accept insults” and “the leader is a red line.”
Bahrain Shiites protest MP insults to top cleric
1 day ago
MANAMA (AFP) — Tens of thousands of Shiite Bahrainis held a protest on Thursday against remarks deemed offensive made by a Sunni MP against the country’s leading Shiite cleric, an AFP correspondent said.
The demonstrators led by Shiite clerics marched peacefully for around two hours in Shiite districts west of Manama holding banners saying: “We don’t accept insults” and “the leader is a red line.”
Earlier this week Sunni MP Jassem al-Saidi issued a statement slamming remarks by leading Shiite cleric Issa Qassem as being “irresponsible and unreasonable, and (reflect) a huge ignorance.”
Saidi was referring to criticism Qassem made on June 13 of the trial of 15 Shiites accused of staging a deadly protest in December 2007.
In a sermon last Friday Qassem charged that the defendants had been tortured — a claim denied by Bahraini officials — and slammed the “harsh and reckless reaction of the security forces against peaceful protests.”
The protest was organised by the Islamic National Accord Association, the main Shiite political formation in Bahrain.
Shiites form the majority in Sunni-ruled Bahrain, a key ally of the United States and home to the US Fifth fleet.
Organisers said that 120,000 people took part in the protest but there was no police assessment of the size of the demonstration.
Last December clashes broke out between police and protesters at an opposition rally in Shiite areas of Bahrain after the death of one of the demonstrators.
Fifteen Shiite were later arrested and charged with unlawful assembly, stealing weapons, burning a police vehicle and committing acts of violence against the police.
The December demonstrations were aimed at seeking compensation for what the Shiites said were human rights violations during the 1980s and 1990s.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jwUDHNiYC7VqxlSEmCun0wsD1wMA
