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Bahrain Rights Activist Sentenced to Five Years in Prison - Lawyer
Prominent Bahraini rights activist Nabeel Rajab was sentenced to
five years in prison on Wednesday after he was convicted over critical comments
he allegedly made on Twitter about the government, his lawyer and activists
said.
Rajab,
a leading figure in pro-democracy protests that swept Bahrain in 2011, was
sentenced over tweets which criticized air strikes in Yemen by a Saudi-led
coalition of which Bahrain is a member and accusing Bahraini prison authorities
of torture.
The
charges cited laws which bar "insulting a neighboring country" and
"insulting national institutions".
There
was no immediate comment from the Bahraini government on the reports.
Rajab
was already serving a two-year sentence over a January 2015 news interview in
which he was accused of saying that Bahrain was torturing political prisoners.
Sayed
Ahmed Alwadaei, an activist with the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights
and Democracy (BIRD), said Bahraini courts were "curtailing freedom of
expression by deterring Bahraini citizens from criticizing its
authorities".
"Instead
of rewarding Nabeel Rajab for his brave and commendable exposure of human rights
abuses and advocacy for peace, the authorities have chosen to punish the
messenger."
Source:
USNews
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