Bahrain Crackdown: Detained Activist’s Health Worsens
Local Editor
Prominent Bahraini human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, is suffering from health problems that have developed or deteriorated during more than 10 months of arbitrary detention, Human Rights Watch [HRW] said Wednesday.
The charges against him violate his right to free expression, and there is evidence he has been punished arbitrarily.
Bahraini authorities arrested Rajab in June 2016, following his social media comments critical of Saudi Arabian airstrikes in Yemen and alleged torture in a Bahrain prison.
Since then, his health deteriorated dramatically. He has undergone two operations, suffered two bouts of heart palpitations that required emergency medical care, and has developed a range of other medical conditions, including a low white blood cell count and depression.
Most recently, his family told HRW, the authorities returned him to his cell two days after an April 5, 2017 operation, contrary to medical advice, leading to his re-hospitalization on April 8. He is in the Public Security Forces Clinic in Qalaa.
"Filing criminal charges against Nabeel Rajab solely for his peaceful criticism and then refusing to free him while the courts cavalierly postpone hearings shows Bahrain's contempt for the most elemental human rights," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
"Nabeel Rajab should not be in jail, and his deteriorating health underscores the injustice of arbitrarily detaining him."
Comments on Rajab's Twitter account about the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen led to his initial arrest, on April 2, 2015.
Authorities released him more than three months later, on July 13, but prosecutors ordered his re-arrest on June 13, 2016.
On April 8, Rajab's family expressed concern that the open wound from surgery to correct a urological/colorectal condition was at risk of infection due to the unhygienic conditions of his cell at East Riffa police station.
The charges against Rajab are a clear violation of his right to free expression, protected under article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], which Bahrain has ratified.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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