Press TV - Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has lambasted a suspended jail term given by a Bahrainiregime court on Sunday to the country's Shia majority leader Sheikh Isa Qassem.
The courtconvicted the spiritual leaderof illegal collection of funds and money laundering and sentencedhim to one year in jail suspended for three years. Italso ordered him to pay $265,266in fines.
This sentence is a new crime added to a series of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the [Bahraini] regime, a Hezbollah statementsaid.
The charges emanate from the collection of an Islamic donationcalled Khums, which in Shia Islam is collected and spent by a senior cleric in the interests of the needy.
Qassem also faces expulsion from the kingdom afterauthorities revoked his citizenship last year.His defense lawyers refused to attend the hearings,which they saw as an attack on the country's Shia Muslims.
Since 2011, the kingdom has been the scene of peaceful anti-regime protests against the systematic abuse of the Shia populationand discrimination against them.
The Bahraini regime has responded to the protests with excessive and lethal force, which hasdrawn international criticism.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="555"]
Bahrainis attend a protest against the revocation of the citizenship of top Bahraini Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim (portrait), on June 20, 2016 near Qassims house in the village of Diraz. (Photo by AFP)[/caption]?Bahrain's perennialrulers are alliesof the West, including the US which has its Fifth naval fleet based in the tiny Persian Gulf country.
On Sunday, hundreds of protesters marched in the capitalManama after the verdict was issued against Sheikh Qassem.
Qassems residence in his native village of Diraz is under siege by regime forces in the face of a sit-in held outside the building ever since the regime revoked hiscitizenship.
