Top human rights activist rearrested in Bahrain

Bahraini security forces on Monday rearrested the leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab in a dawn raid, his family said on Twitter.

Detained in 2014 for tweets deemed insulting to the Gulf kingdom's authorities before his release on health grounds, Rajab, 51, was apprehended at his home in the mainly Shiite village of Bani Jamra, near the capital Manama, his family said.

"Rajab was arrested from his house and his house was searched," his wife Sumaya Rajab tweeted.

No immediate reason was given for his latest arrest.

The head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights who has led anti-government marches, Rajab had previously served two years in jail for taking part in unauthorized protests.

Sentenced to another six months in prison for his tweets, he was released in July 2015 after King Hamad issued a royal pardon "for health reasons."

Home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, Bahrain has been rocked by unrest since security forces crushed Shiite-led protests in 2011 demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

Washington, which has called for Rajab's release during previous detentions, complained directly to the government again on Monday.

"We're deeply concerned," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. "We do not at this point know what charges have been levelled against him."

"We don't believe anyone should be put in prison or prosecuted for engaging in peaceful expression or assembly," he added. "Societies are strengthened, not threatened, by peaceful expression of dissent." 

Rajab's arrest comes a week after another leading opposition activist, Zeinab al-Khawaja, fled Bahrain following her release from jail on "humanitarian grounds."

"It pains me to leave, but I leave carrying our cause on my back, and my love for my country in my chest," Khawaja -- who left for Denmark where she also holds citizenship -- said on Twitter.

She was sentenced to three years and one month on charges including tearing up the monarch's picture and insulting a police officer, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights has said.

Human rights groups condemned Rajab's latest detention.

It "appears to be another alarming example of Bahrain's zero-tolerance stance toward peaceful dissent and activism, which it enforces through arbitrary measures including revolving-doors detention," Amnesty International's James Lynch said.

- 'Deteriorating human rights record' -

Also on Monday, an appeals court in Bahrain upheld jail terms of between 10 and 15 years for 11 Shiites convicted of forming a "terrorist group" that planned to attack police and the Saudi embassy in Manama, among other charges, a judicial source said.
The court also confirmed a previous criminal court order to revoke their citizenship, the source added.

Bahrain has detained scores of opponents of the kingdom's Saudi-allied rulers, often sentencing them to lengthy jail terms, rights groups say.

A court in May more than doubled the jail sentence passed against opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, who is now set to serve nine years in prison for inciting violence.

The authorities also prevented five activists from leaving Bahrain for Geneva on Sunday to attend a UN Human Rights Council session, London-based Amnesty said. 

"It has become painfully clear in recent weeks that the authorities in Bahrain have little interest in what the world makes of their deteriorating human rights record," Lynch said.

Source: AFP