Two rights groups have raised the alarm over the worsening health condition of Bahraini Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim, warning that the top spiritual leader's life is "in danger."
Life of Bahraini Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim in danger: Rights groups
1 Dec 2017 - 16:20
Two rights groups have raised the alarm over the worsening health condition of Bahraini Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim, warning that the top spiritual leader's life is "in danger."
“I issue a call: Sheikh Isa Ahmed Qassim is in danger,” said Sheikh Maytham Salman of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and the Bahrain Interfaith Center at a news conference in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday, referring to the top cleric’s deteriorating health.
Earlier this week, the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) reported that physicians who had visited the spiritual leader at his home in the northwestern village of Diraz over the weekend had diagnosed him to be suffering from a “groin hernia requiring an emergency operation.”
Bahraini activists had also reported at the time that Sheikh Qassim, who is believed to be in his late 70s, was suffering constant pain and excreting blood.
“We are looking at a slow murder. What (Qassim) needs is medical treatment and freedom, which are natural rights enshrined in law and the constitution,” added Salman during the presser, calling on the Bahraini regime to lift the siege on the cleric's home village of Diraz.
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