Call for boycott of Saudi goods over Bahrain

An Iraqi Shia newspaper called on Sunday for a boycott of goods from Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf countries that have supported the government of Bahrain in a crackdown against a mainly Shia opposition.
Buying Saudi and Gulf goods contributes to the "slaughter of the Bahraini people" and boycotting them is a religious duty, the al-Bayyna daily newspaper said in a front page headline that demonstrated the escalating regional rhetoric over Bahrain.
Thousands of Iraqi Shias have taken to the streets this week to protest against intervention by Saudi and other Gulf militaries in Bahrain, an issue which has cast a spotlight on Iraq's own sectarian divisions after years of war.
Bahrain invited Gulf troops in, and its security forces cleared protesters from a central square. Its main opposition groups, led by the largest Shia opposition party Wefaq, have since eased their conditions on talks with the Sunni ruling family to try to end the crisis.
Iraq, like Bahrain, has a Shia majority that complained for decades of oppression under a Sunni ruling class that dominates throughout the Arab world. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said the intervention by Saudi and other Gulf troops in Bahrain risks igniting sectarian tensions. Shia Iran has complained to the United Nations about the Gulf states' intervention in Bahrain, and in another sign on Sunday of rising tensions between the Sunni Muslim-ruled island kingdom and Iran, a diplomatic source told Reuters Bahrain had expelled the Iranian charge d'affaires.
Protests have also been held in Lebanon, which along with Bahrain and Iraq is one of the rare Arab states where Shias outnumber Sunnis. Baghdad has had uneasy relations with its overwhelmingly Sunni Arab neighbours since US troops toppled Iraq's Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003 allowing a Shia-led government to come to power.
"We, in the name of the oppressed Iraqi and Bahraini people, ask our top clerics especially (Grand Ayatollah) Ali al-Sistani to release a Fatwa (religious order) to fight those arrogant regimes economically and boycott their goods," al-Bayyna wrote. Sistani, who rarely intervenes publicly in politics, has called on the authorities in Bahrain to stop using force against peaceful demonstrators.