Bahrain : Bahraini court confirms Nabeel Rajab’s five-year jail term
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the decision by Bahrain’s court of cassation on 31 December to reject citizen-journalist and human rights defender Nabeel Rajab’s appeal against his five-year jail sentence and reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release.
Rajab, who heads the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) and has been held since June 2016, received the sentence on 21 February for tweets criticizing conditions in Bahrain’s Jau prison and the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen.
He previously received a separate two-year prison sentence in July 2017 on a charge of disseminating “rumours” and “false news” for criticizing the Bahraini authorities in TV interviews.
RSF condemns the harshness of this latest sentence in the strongest possible terms, as well as the iniquity of the proceedings that led to it, and urges the Bahraini authorities to free Rajab at once.
A total of 15 journalists and bloggers are currently detained in connection with the provision of news and information in Bahrain, which is ranked 166th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.
Middle East - North Africa
