Security disturbances and persecution of the people’s freedoms in Bahrain

YemenExtra

SH.A.

A protester was killed on Tuesday in a Bahraini police raid on a sit-in by supporters of a leading Shia cleric put on trial in the Gulf state, a rights group said.

The Britain-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy reported the “tragic death of a peaceful protester in the crackdown” in Diraz, the hometown of cleric Isa Qassim.

Activists confirmed that the security forces killed a protester during a raid on the home village of Bahrain’s Shia Muslim spiritual leader on Tuesday.

Bahraini authorities said they made several arrests but did not comment on the reported death in Diraz, where supporters of Ayatollah Isa Qassim from the island kingdom’s minority Shia community have set up a protest camp.

Security forces entered the village early on Tuesday, days after Qassim was sentenced to a year in jail, suspended for three years, on charges of corruption.

He was also stripped of citizenship last year, sparking the sit-in outside of his residence in Diraz.

The interior ministry said on Tuesday it had “launched a security operation in the village of Diraz to preserve security and civil order as the site is a safe haven for fugitives.”

Sunni-ruled Bahrain has been shaken by unrest since security forces crushed Shia-led protests demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister in 2011.