Senior Bahraini Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Issa Qassem said attempts to expel representative of Ayatollah Sistani from the country have no legal basis.
Delivering Friday prayers sermons at Manama’s Imam Sadeq (AS) Mosque yesterday, Ayatollah Qassem criticized the Al Khalifa regime’s decision to expel Ayatollah Hussein Nijati and described it as an illegal move.
He said the regime’s insistence on forcing the cleric to leave the country would send the message to the Bahraini people that they are considered strangers in their own land.
He added that the Al Khalifa regime’s insistence on expelling Ayatollah Nijati could close all the doors to any solution for leading the country out of the current crisis.
Ayatollah Qassem called for condemnation of the regime’s attempts to expel Ayatollah Sistani’s representative and said the Bahraini people will not remain silent over such a move by the regime.
Regime forces in Bahrain on Sunday raided the office of the representative of Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani in Manama.
The security forces attacked the office of Ayatollah Sheikh Hussein Nijati and took away the director of the office and another scholar working with the office for interrogation, Sawt al-Manama website reported.
The two Shia scholars were interrogated and insulted for six hours before being released, the report said.
The regime has also threatened to expel the cleric from the country.
Since mid-February 2011, thousands of pro-democracy protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in the streets of Bahrain, calling for the Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power.
On March 14, 2011, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded the country to assist the Bahraini government in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters.
According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested since the uprising began in the Persian Gulf country.
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