High-profile Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab was sentenced to a further five years in jail on Wednesday over tweets critical of the war in Yemen, a judicial source and human rights groups said.
Rajab, a leading figure in 2011 protests against the Gulf state’s Sunni minority rulers, was already serving a two-year sentence handed down last July for “disseminating rumours and false information” in television interviews critical of the government. In the latest case, Rajab was found guilty of insulting a neighbouring country and spreading false news and rumours, a judicial source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The charges are linked to tweets and retweets, made via Rajab’s account and critical of a Saudi-led coalition, including Bahrain, that has been fighting in Yemen in support of its beleaguered government since 2015. The charges also relate to tweets critical of Bahrain’s treatment of inmates at the notorious Jaw prison, south of the capital Manama. The kingdom’s leading human rights groups, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, confirmed the charges and sentence.
Published in Daily Times, February 22nd 2018.
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