Bahrain’s Nabeel Rajab to face trial for tweets
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Bahraini human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab (C), and his daughter Malak (L) leave a court building after attending his appeal hearing on February 11, 2015 in the capital Manama. ©AFP
Bahrain’s prominent opposition leader and human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, is to go on trial for posting messages on Twitter criticizing the dire conditions of a prison in the country and Manama’s involvement in the Saudi war on Yemen.
According to Press TV quoting his lawyer, who made the announcement on Sunday, Rajab is likely to face a prison term for the tweets he made last year accusing Bahraini regime forces of torturing detainees in a main prison and criticizing the Manama regime’s contribution to the Saudi campaign against Yemen, which has martyred thousands of people since March 2015.
"He was notified of the referring of his case regarding Jaw prison and the Yemen war to the High Criminal Court for trial," Jalila Sayed said, adding, "The first hearing will be on July 12, 2016. Nabeel may face up to 13 years of imprisonment if convicted in that case."
Rajab, as his lawyer said, is being kept in solitary confinement, with no contact or any interaction with other prisoners and the living conditions in his cell are extremely unsanitary.
The rights activist has been arrested several times since the start of the anti-regime uprising in Bahrain in early 2011.
He was sentenced to six months in prison in January 2015 for posting tweets critical of the Ale Khalifah regime. In May last year, a Bahraini court upheld Rajab’s jail sentence.
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