Protesters stage anti-regime rally in Bahrain

Bahraini protesters march along a street during an anti-regime demonstration in the island of Sitra, Bahrain, August 16, 2016.
Scores of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Bahrain in a show of solidarity with political prisoners and jailed activists.

On Tuesday evening, protesters staged a rally in the island of Sitra south of the capital, Manama, carrying Bahrain’s national flags as well as banners in condemnation of the ruling Al Khalifah dynasty and Saudi Arabia’s Al Saud regime.

The marchers vowed not to end their peaceful campaign until their legitimate demands are met.

Bahraini regime forces then intervened, and fired tear gas canisters to break up the protest. No reports of casualties or arrests were available.

Elsewhere in the northwestern village of Diraz, about 12 kilometers (7 miles) west of the capital, Manama, dozens of people said their dawn prayers in front of the residence of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Issa Qassim, whom Bahraini authorities have recently stripped of his nationality, on Wednesday.

Bahraini authorities revoked Sheikh Qassim’s citizenship in late June. They later dissolved the country’s main opposition bloc al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, as well as the Islamic Enlightenment Institution, founded by the 79-year-old cleric, besides another opposition movement al-Risala Islamic Association.

Separately, Bahraini regime forces arrested the sister of an Wafa’a Islamic Party leader Sayed Morteza al-Sanadi at the Bahrain International Airport in Muharraq. The woman was reportedly returning together with her husband and daughter from a trip to Iran.

Anti-regime protesters have staged numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis since February 14, 2011, calling on the Al Khalifah regime to relinquish power.

Troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — themselves repressive Arab regimes — were deployed to the country in March that year to assist the Manama government in its crackdown on peaceful and pro-democracy rallies.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others injured or arrested in Manama’s crackdown on the anti-regime activists.