{"id":14230,"date":"2012-11-21T09:24:22","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T16:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=14230"},"modified":"2012-11-21T14:09:26","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T21:09:26","slug":"free-nabeel-rajab-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=14230","title":{"rendered":"Free Nabeel Rajab!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>From the Hague November, 2012<\/p>\n

Bahrain: Free Nabeel Rajab!<\/strong>
\n20 November, 2012 – Silent All These Years<\/p>\n

Bahrain\u2019s court of appeal should overturn a lower court conviction for illegal assembly against the human rights activist Nabeel Rajab and cancel his three-year prison term, according to a recent Human Rights Watch press release. Because the authorities have presented no evidence that he advocated or participated in violence, his conviction is a violation of his right to freedom of peaceful assembly, Human Rights Watch said. The court was scheduled to hear Rajab\u2019s appeal on October 16, 2012, but the appellate court postponed the hearing and denied a petition filed by Rajab\u2019s lawyer challenging the legality of the laws prohibiting demonstrations. A new hearing has been scheduled for December 11, 2012.<\/p>\n

A criminal court sentenced Rajab on August 16 to three years in prison for organizing and participating in three demonstrations between January and March 2012. Rajab is president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a member of the advisory committee of the Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Division.\u201cThe criminal court verdict cites no evidence \u2013 not even an allegation\u2013 that Nabeel Rajab participated in or advocated violent protests,\u201d said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cHe has the basic right to peaceful assembly and shouldn\u2019t be sent to prison for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Public Prosecution Office charged Rajab under article 178 of the Penal Code, which prohibits unauthorized gatherings of five or more people in a public place with the \u201cpurpose of committing crimes\u201d or \u201cundermining public security, even if intended to achieve legitimate purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

A public prosecution official told Bahraini media that that Rajab had incited violence. The government also posted videos of some protests on YouTube, claiming, \u201cYou will find\u2026defendant Nabeel Rajab violating the law.\u201d Those videos appear to confirm that the protests were peaceful and do not capture any incitement to violence by Rajab or otherwise support the allegation made by the public prosecutor.<\/p>\n

No such evidence is cited in the court\u2019s verdicts in the three cases. In the case numbered 07291204947, police testified that after they dispersed an \u201cillegal demonstration\u201d on January 12, some people threw stones and Molotov cocktails at \u201cspecial forces\u201d and blocked the road with metal containers. One officer testified that he saw Rajab leading a march of 10 to 15 people \u201cchanting for the release of political detainees.\u201d But the verdict cites no evidence suggesting that Rajab was involved in the violence that police alleged occurred or that he incited such acts. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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From the Hague November, 2012 Bahrain: Free Nabeel Rajab! 20 November, 2012 – Silent All These Years Bahrain\u2019s court of appeal should overturn a lower court conviction for illegal assembly against the human rights activist Nabeel Rajab and cancel his three-year prison term, according to a recent Human Rights Watch press release. Because the authorities more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3725],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14230"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14232,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14230\/revisions\/14232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}