
Paris-Geneva,
December 16, 2016 - For the fifth time in
a row, Court postpones verdict of human rights defender Nabeel Rajab as he remains
jailed for his tweets and his human rights activities in violation of his right
to freedom of expression. Furthermore, the health of Mr. Rajab has seriously
deteriorated since his arrest in June 2016.
On
December 15, 2016, after a fifteen minutes hearing during which Nabeel Rajab
was not allowed to speak, the Fourth High Criminal Court postponed
the verdict until December 28, 2016 and refused to release him, after he has
spent more than six months in pre-trial detention.
“In a sad parody of justice, Bahraini
authorities are punishing Nabeel Rajab for exercising his right to freedom of
expression. Mr. Rajab should be released immediately and unconditionally”,
said FIDH President Dimitris Christopoulos.
Nabeel
Rajab is co-founder and President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights
(BCHR), founding director of the
Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), Deputy Secretary General of FIDH from 2012
to 2016 and a member of the Middle East advisory committee at Human Rights Watch.
He was arrested on June 13, 2016 on several charges and has suffered from poor
health in prison including irregular heartbeats, an ulcer and problems with his
gallbladder.
Nabeel
Rajab is facing up to 15 years in prison on charges related to comments
posted on Twitter in 2015 about the conditions of detention in Jaw
prison and the war in Yemen. According to the United Nations, the
Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen have so far been responsible for the
deaths of thousands of civilians[1].
“The detention of one of Bahrain’s most
prominent defender for speaking out on rights violations sends a chilling
message about the status of human rights in the country”,
said OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock.
Mr.
Rajab is facing charges of allegedly “offending a foreign country” (Saudi
Arabia) and “offending national institutions” for the comments about the
alleged torture of inmates in Bahrain’s Jaw Prison in March 2015. In September
2016, an additional charge was brought against Mr. Rajab following the
publication on September 5, 2016 of an Op-Ed in The New York Times with
his by-line, which discussed the conditions of his imprisonment and arrest. He
was charged with “intentionally broadcasting false news and malicious rumors
abroad impairing the prestige of the state”, which carries an additional
one-year prison term.
His
peaceful human rights activism and criticism of the Bahraini authorities has
resulted in his imprisonment on two previous occasions, between May 2012 and
May 2014, and between January 2015 and July 2015. In 2013, the United Nations
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) found that Mr. Rajab’s detention
was arbitrary, noting that the “domestic laws of Bahrain (…) seem to deny
persons the basic right to freedom of opinion, expression”[2].
The Observatory for the
Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT partnership) urges the
international community to urgently take a strong stand against the
systematic repression of human rights defenders in Bahrain.
The Observatory for the Protection
of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by FIDH and the
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). The objective of this programme is
to intervene to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights
defenders. FIDH and OMCT are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union Human Rights
Defenders Mechanism implemented by international civil society.
[1]
See Article in Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-toll-idUSKCN11516W
[2] Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Opinion A/HRC/WGAD/2013/12 No.
12/2013, July 25, 2013, available at: http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G13/159/40/PDF/G1315940.pdf?OpenElement.
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