Bahrain strips citizenship of top Shiite cleric

Bahrain has accused Sheikh Isa Qassim, the Shiite community’s spiritual leader, of abusing his position and serving 'foreign interests'.

A file photo of Bahraini anti-government protesters hold posters of top Shiite cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim in Karrana, Bahrain, just outside the capital of Manama. Bahrain's government on June 20, 2016, revoked the citizenship of Sheikh Qassim. Hasan Jamali/AP Photo
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Bahrain has revoked the citizenship of the kingdom’s top Shiite cleric, accusing him of sowing sectarian divisions.

Sheikh Isa Qassim, the community’s spiritual leader, had abused his position to “serve foreign interests and promote ... sectarianism and violence”, the interior ministry said, according to the BNA state news agency.

Sheikh Qassim had been a strong proponent of “absolute allegiance to the clergy”, while maintaining continuous contact with “organisations and parties that are enemies of the kingdom”, it charged.

The decision follows the suspension of Bahrain’s main Shiite opposition group, Al Wefaq, whose political chief Sheikh Ali Salman is serving a nine-year prison sentence on charges of inciting violence.

Bahrain has faced unrest since a 2011 uprising backed by majority Shiites demanded a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. The kingdom put down the protests with the help of its allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Protesters still clash with police in Shiite villages outside the capital.

Sheikh Qassim allegedly worked on “controlling elections” by issuing fatwas, or religious edicts, either calling for or against voter participation, the interior ministry said.

It said his interventions “stretched to aspects of public life”.

The ministry suggested that Sheikh Qassim was not Bahraini in origin, without specifying when he acquired citizenship. Online sources say he was born in Diraz village, west of Manama in the 1940s.

He delivers the sermon at weekly Friday prayers in the mosque of Diraz, and regularly criticises the government’s crackdown on the opposition and protests.

Prime minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa warned on Monday that “there will be no place for those who incite violations of the law and who threaten the security of the country”.

Saudi Arabia’s senior council of clerics welcomed Bahrain’s decision.

Several hundred of Sheikh Qassim’s supporters gathered outside his house in the mostly Shiite village of Diraz, carrying posters and chanting religious slogans.

Bahrain has long accused Iran of stoking tensions in the kingdom, and on Monday, Qassem Suleimani, head of the Quds Force, the elite special forces arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, warned Bahrain of armed struggle in response to the decision.

“The Al Khalifa [rulers of Bahrain] surely know their aggression against Sheikh Isa Qassim is a red line that crossing it would set Bahrain and the whole region on fire, and it would leave no choice for people but to resort to armed resistance,” he said, in a statement published by Fars news agency.

Bahraini authorities have revoked by court order the citizenships of scores of Shiites convicted of violence.

But unlike earlier cases, the decision against Sheikh Qassim was issued by Bahrain’s council of ministers and not by a court.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, says at least 250 people have been stripped of their Bahraini citizenship in recent years due to alleged disloyalty.

Last week, Bahrain’s authorities detained prominent rights activist Nabeel Rajab on charges related to his criticism of the government. On Thursday, a Bahraini court sentenced eight Shiites to 15-year prison terms and stripped them of their citizenship for forming a “terror” group.

In another trial, 13 people were jailed 15 years each for the attempted murder of policemen. Twenty-two others were jailed for three years each in the same case.

The verdicts are the latest in the series of rulings meted out against Bahrain’s Shiites.

They followed a decision to close all the offices of Wefaq and freeze its funds for its alleged role as a haven of “terrorism, radicalisation, and violence” and for serving as a channel for “foreign interference” in the kingdom’s affairs.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press