Bahrain Mirror: The security authorities summoned Sheikh Mohammad Sanqour, preacher of Imam Al-Sadiq Mosque in Diraz, for investigation on Monday (May 22, 2023).

Al-Wefaq Society said via its Twitter account that a large number of regime forces surrounded Sheikh Sanqour's home and handed him a summons for investigation.

Citizens denounced the security authorities' summons to Sheikh Sanqour, and created Stop-Sectarian-Persecution hashtag on Twitter, indicating that the summons is based on a sectarian background.

Commenting on Sheikh Sanqour's summons, Al-Wefaq media official Sayed Taher Al-Mousawi said, "If the government does not tolerate Sheikh Sanqour's classy, balanced and patriotic speech, it will certainly not tolerate any word from any citizen who has an opinion."

"The inability to live with this discourse makes the country need a lot of work to rebuild the lost trust," he added in a tweet. 

The Bahrain Forum for Human Rights commented on Sheikh Sanqour's summons saying that "since 2011, the security authorities have been targeting religious scholars for political and malicious reasons," noting that "the total violations against them amounted to 592, including 171 summonses for the purpose of political intimidation."

The forum stated that on December 2, 2022, "the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination adopted its report on Bahrain," adding that "summoning of one of the Imams of the largest Friday prayer for the Shiite community in Bahrain at the Imam Al-Sadiq Mosque in Diraz, gives a clear indication of the authorities' lack of response to the recommendations issued by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination, as well as the persistence of the sustained undermining of freedom of religion, belief and expression by the security services.

Arabic Version