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| Bahrain forces raid top Shia cleric's house |
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.jpg) Bahraini security forces raided the house of top Shia cleric Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim on Friday, the opposition said, Reuters reported.
Security personnel forced open the door of Sheikh Isa's home in the village of Duraz in the early hours of Friday morning and searched the house, Bahrain's main opposition bloc al-Wefaq said on its website.
Women and children from the sheikh's family were in the house at the time of the raid, but the sheikh was not at home, al-Wefaq said. No one was reported hurt.
In a statement to state media, Bahrain's chief of public security made no mention of the raid but said police on duty in Duraz early on Friday had come under fire from a “locally made weapon”, injuring two officers.
In response, “necessary measures were taken to reinforce the security force patrols with members of an anti-terrorism unit ... to uncover the source of the gunfire,” Major-General Tariq Al-Hassan told the state news agency BNA.
He said the shooting was still under investigation.
A leading Bahrain human rights activist said he believed security forces had entered the sheikh's house in pursuit of fugitives who had fled there from a neighboring house.
“This is the first time (his house was raided) and it's hugely offensive for a huge number of Shias in Bahrain,” said Mohammed al-Maskati, president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights.
“People see him as a red line. I expect that this will cause a big reaction.”
Meanwhile, the leader of Iraq’s Sadrist movement Muqtada al-Sadr called on his supporters to demonstrate after Friday prayers to demand the closure of the Bahraini embassy in Iraq “immediately and without delay.” Sadr also asked Iraqi government for sympathy with the demonstrators and the abandonment of narrow political interests.
The Bahraini revolution began on February 14, 2011, when the people, inspired by the popular revolutions that toppled the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive demonstrations.
On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country, upon Manama's request, to help the Bahraini regime quash the uprising.
The protesters initially said they wanted political reform and a constitutional monarchy. However, following the regime’s brutal crackdown on the popular protests, the Bahraini people began demanding that the ruling Al Khalifa family step down.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others arrested in the crackdown, but the protesters are undaunted and have refused to back down on their demands.
A report published by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in November 2011 found that the Al Khalifa regime had used excessive force in the crackdown and accused Manama of torturing political activists, politicians, and protesters.
Physicians for Human Rights says doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters.
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