{"id":9791,"date":"2012-05-16T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9791"},"modified":"2012-05-16T09:00:32","modified_gmt":"2012-05-16T16:00:32","slug":"hamad-drop-charges-against-nabeel-rajab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9791","title":{"rendered":"Hamad, drop charges against Nabeel Rajab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bahrain: Drop Charges Against Rights Activists<\/strong><br \/>\n15 May, 2012 &#8211; Human Rights Watch<\/p>\n<p>(Beirut) \u2013 Bahraini authorities should drop politically motivated criminal charges against Nabeel Rajab, a human rights activist, and release him immediately. Rajab is scheduled to go on trial on May 16, 2012, for \u201coffending an official institution\u201d \u2013 namely, the Interior Ministry, which he criticized for allegedly ignoring attacks against boys and young protesters as well as Shia-owned businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a member of the advisory committee of Human Rights Watch\u2019s Middle East Division, was arrested at the Bahrain International Airport on May 5, 2012, upon his arrival from Beirut. Mohamed al-Jishi, Rajab\u2019s lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that the public prosecutor brought the \u201coffending\u201d charge against Rajab for four Twitter postings in recent months in which he criticized the Interior Ministry for, in al-Jishi\u2019s words, \u201cnot prosecuting attacks by armed gangs who have attacked civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe charges against Nabeel Rajab are nothing more than attempts to silence one of the Bahraini government\u2019s most prominent critics,\u201d said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cAuthorities should immediately drop these charges and release him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Public Prosecution Office says it is also holding him pending investigation into charges that he \u201cincited illegal gatherings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On May 11, following the Washington visit of Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the US State Department announced that the Obama administration was resuming the provision of some military equipment and services for sale to Bahrain\u2019s army, National Guard, and Coast Guard.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapsofwar.com\/ind\/imperial-history.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8230;more<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"igit_tsb_button\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crookedbough.com%2F%3Fp%3D9791&amp;text=Hamad%2C+drop+charges+against+Nabeel+Rajab&amp;count=horizontal&amp;via=\" style=\"\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bahrain: Drop Charges Against Rights Activists 15 May, 2012 &#8211; Human Rights Watch (Beirut) \u2013 Bahraini authorities should drop politically motivated criminal charges against Nabeel Rajab, a human rights activist, and release him immediately. Rajab is scheduled to go on trial on May 16, 2012, for \u201coffending an official institution\u201d \u2013 namely, the Interior Ministry, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9791#more-'\" class=\"more-link\">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":[3020],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791"}],"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=9791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9793,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9791\/revisions\/9793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}