Hawzah News Agency (Qom, Iran) - Ayatollah Mahdi Hadawi Tehrani in a gathering with students to show solidarity with the people of Bahrain, said, “ From the very beginning, Shaykh Isa Qasim was opposed to the idea of ‘Regime Change’ and did not see it being beneficial to the Shias of Bahrain."

He added, "Because of this Shaykh Isa entered the fray with a diplomatic slogan and focused on this issue that the governmental posts of Bahrain should be allocated equally and not based upon corrupt elections which resulted in keeping the Shias in a minority.”

Ayatollah Hadawi went on to stress, “The activities of Shaykh Isa Qasim and Shaykh Ali Salman in Bahrain have nothing to do with sectarianism between Sunnis and Shias, but rather they had a diplomatic and democratic request; however the Al Khalifah regime carried out negative propaganda against them so that they could achieve their own goals.”