Amnesty International has called on the Bahraini regime to suspend its heavy-handed crackdown on peaceful critics and opposition figures as Manama keeps up its policy of repression.
The Bahraini authorities should halt immediately their heightened crackdown on peaceful critics and opponents, said the UK-based rights group said in a statement published on Thursday.
Over the past two months, scores of protesters and at least 60 Shia clerics have been summoned and arrested in connection with sit-ins held in the village of Diraz, home to leading Shia cleric, Sheikh IsaQassim.
Sheikh Qassim is the spiritual leader of al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Bahrains main opposition group which has recently been dissolved by the Manama regime.
He had his citizenship revoked back in June, with Bahrains Interior Ministry accusing the clergyman of seeking the creation of a sectarian environment.He has rejected the accusation.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="555"]
People holding Bahraini flags and placards with images of top Shia cleric, Sheikh Isa Qassim, shout slogans during an anti-regime protest after the Friday prayers in Diraz, west of Manama, Bahrain, August 12, 2016. Reuters[/caption]Elsewhere in its statement, Amnesty said that four of the detained clerics were sentenced to between one and two years imprisonment while nine others remain in detention and are facing trial.
Most of the 60 have been charged with illegal gathering or inciting hatred of the regime as well as taking part in the Diraz demonstrations.
Many of the Shia clergymen released a statement in July demanding thatthe Al Khalifah regimehalt its practice of targeting them for their identity, beliefs and rituals.
Last month, a number of United Nations-appointed independent experts said the kingdom should stop arbitrary arrests and summons, and release thosewho put behind bars for exercising their rights.
Human Rights Watch also accused the Bahraini regime of systematically targeting religious leaders of the countrys Shia community and violating the clerics rightto freedom of expression and gathering.
Bahrain, a close ally of the US in the Persian Gulf region, has seen a wave of anti-regime protests since mid-February 2011.
Several rights groups have frequently censured Bahrain for rampant human rights abuses against opposition activists and anti-regime demonstrators.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others wounded or detained amid Manamas ongoing crackdown on dissent and widespread discrimination against the countrys Shia majority.
By Press TV
