GENEVA (Dispatches) – Bahrain’s detention of activist Nabeel Rajab is unlawful and violates his right to freedom of expression, UN human rights experts have found, calling on the kingdom to immediately release him with compensation.
Bahrain, where a Sunni Muslim royal family rules over a Shia-majority population, has cracked down on perceived threats since Arab Spring protests in 2011, were quashed with the help of Persian Gulf Arab neighbors.
Rajab was sentenced to five years in prison in February for criticizing Saudi Arabia’s air strikes in Yemen and writing tweets accusing Bahrain’s prison authorities of torture.
A leading figure in the pro-democracy protests, he was already serving a two-year term over a news interview in which he said Bahrain tortured political prisoners.
In a formal opinion posted overnight, the UN panel of five independent experts said that provisions of Bahrain’s penal code were "so vague and overly broad” that people were punished for merely exercising their rights under international law.
"The Working Group therefore considers that Mr. Rajab’s deprivation of liberty is arbitrary,” it said, adding that: "no such trial” should have taken place.
Rajab’s political views were "clearly at the centre of the present case” and the government attitude had been "discriminatory”, it said. "He has been the target of persecution, including deprivation of liberty, for many years and there is no other explanation for this except that he is exercising his right to express such views and convictions.”
Rajab, held since June 2016, should be released immediately and compensated, it said.
The Manama regime, in a statement, rejected the findings of the UN experts, saying Rajab's trials had been independent and transparent.
Separately, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei of the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, in a statement said, "The UN has now unequivocally found that Bahrain is arbitrarily detaining Nabeel Rajab in violation of numerous international legal standards – these vital findings cannot be ignored.”
He called for the kingdom’s allies, including Britain, to back the call for Rajab’s release, adding, "Anything short of that is a tacit endorsement [of] Bahrain’s patently criminal behavior."