The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) stressed that the religious freedom for the majority-Shi�a community deteriorated, stating that there was a sharp increase in the number of interrogations, arrests, convictions, and arbitrary detentions of Shi�a Muslim clerics, in particular most senior Shi�a cleric in Bahrain, Sheikh Isa Qassim, whose citizenship was arbitrarily stripped by authorities in June.