Bahraini Nabeel Rajab jailed for tweeting on regime-ISIS links

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This video says about itself:

Jailed for a Tweet: Interview with Nabeel Rajab

21 October 2014

Nabeel Rajab is a human rights activist awaiting trial in Bahrain, one of the West’s favorite dictatorships. Three years after the Arab Spring, protests there are still being violently repressed, and Rajab now faces up to three years in jail — for a tweet. VICE News spoke to him a few weeks before his latest arrest.

Read more: Bahrain’s Human Rights Activist Faces Jail Time — for a Tweet.

From the International Business Times:

Bahrain upholds prison sentence for Nabeel Rajab over ‘IS defection’ tweet

By Gianluca Mezzofiore

May 14, 2015 10:00 BST

A Bahraini appeals court has upheld a six-month prison sentence for Bahrain’s human rights activist Nabeel Rajab over a tweet that alleged some of the Gulf Kingdom’s soldiers had defected to the Islamic State (Isis).

Rajab, who is president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) was freed in May 2014 after serving two years in prison for his role in the pro-democracy uprising. He was arrested again last October and charged with publicly “insulting a public institution” on the microblogging site.

The Bahraini Ministry of Interior said it summoned Rajab “to interview him regarding tweets posted on his Twitter account that denigrated government institutions”.

The tweets related to an article published on Global Voices about alleged Bahraini recruits to Islamic State who featured in a video threatening to overthrow the al-Khalifa regime which rules Bahrain. The activist commented:

many #Bahrain men who joined #terrorism & #ISIS came from security institutions and those institutions were the first ideological incubator

The video included Lieutenant Mohamed Isa Al-Binali, who had defected from the army.

Rajab spoke to IBTimes UK in July 2014 about his time in prison and accused the British government of supporting the bloody al-Khalifa regime in the Gulf Kingdom despite daily human rights violations because of business interests.

He said that the Bahraini government “have bought the silence of the British government by increasing the business” since the start of the crackdown on peaceful protesters in 2011.

“The arms trade has increased, the business between the UK government and Bahrain has increased after the crackdown over 30%,” he said. “That’s why you see not only silence in the British government but also harassment to human rights defenders and even to the people living in this country and who came seeking asylum from Bahrain.”

Rajab, one of several pro-democracy campaigners arrested in the regime’s clampdown, was considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

More about Nabeel Rajab

The Observatory has been informed by reliable sources about the continuous travel ban of Mr. Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), FIDH Deputy Secretary General and a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division: here.

Bahrain: Index condemns decision upholding sentence of human rights activist. By Index on Censorship / 14 May, 2015: here.

Amnesty International criticized Thursday’s decision, saying it shows a “complete disregard for the right to freedom of expression”: here.

USA: On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of 45 congressional leaders urged President Obama to push the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—to reform their human rights practices. Obama met with leaders in Washington on Wednesday and will meet with them at Camp David today: here.

Gulf human rights abuses in focus as Camp David summit tackles Iran fears. Bahrain confirms controversial prison sentence for Twitter dissident Nabeel Rajab as anxious Arab leaders meet Barack Obama: here.

European Parliament urges Bahrain to lift Nabeel Rajab’s travel ban and drop charges against him: here.

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