Wide demos swept Bahrain, with people spent night outside house of Leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Issa al-Qassem who Al-Khalufa regime stripped him of his nationality.

Wide demos swept Bahrain, with people spent night outside house of Leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Issa al-Qassem who Al-Khalufa regime stripped him of his nationality.

A picture tweeted by Bahrain's human rights activist Nabeel Rajab on Tuesday showed protesters sleeping outside the home in the village of Diraz near the capital Manama.

In the village of Juffair, protesters clashed with security forces which fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the crowd.

The Bahraini regime's decision has raised fears of a further showdown between protesters and security forces in the tiny Persian Gulf island which is already the scene of regular protests.

On Monday, protesters took to the streets in Diraz to vent their anger as the decision against Sheikh Qassim was announced. Some of them wore white funeral shrouds to demonstrate their willingness to die for their cause.  

Security forces deployed in force and sealed off the village, where thousands of demonstrators waved portraits of their religious leader and chanted slogans against King Hamad.

In revoking Sheikh Qassem's citizenship, Bahrain accused him of sowing "sectarianism and violence," blaming him for the protests which have continued for years despite a heavy-handed crackdown on the island's mostly Shia community.

The decision against Sheikh Qassim follows the suspension of Bahrain's main opposition group, al-Wefaq, whose political chief Sheikh Ali Salman is serving a nine-year jail term on charges of inciting violence.