AhlulBayt News Agency

source : ABNA
Monday

23 January 2017

5:16:14 PM
806792

Bahrain activist in court for Twitter post on Saudi invasion

The prosecution in a Bahraini court on Monday presented what it said was evidence against prominent rights activist Nabeel Rajab, accused of spreading "false information" about the kingdom, a judicial source said.

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - They submitted an "expert report" that they said confirmed Rajab was in charge of his Twitter account where allegedly offensive tweets were posted, the source said.

The defence, for its part, reiterated it case that Rajab was not in control of his account at the time the tweets were posted.

The court had ordered the appointment of an expert from the interior ministry's cyber crimes unit to determine who was operating Rajab's Twitter account, AFP reported.

The hearing was adjourned to February 21.

Rajab is accused of "spreading false news and rumours and inciting propaganda during wartime which could undermine the war operations by the Bahraini armed forces and weaken the nation", according to state media.

Bahrain is part of a Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni peoples.

Shiite human rights activist Rajab, who had been pardoned for health reasons in 2015, was rearrested in June and is on trial on a list of charges, including insulting a state institution and Saudi Arabia in online postings.

A Bahraini court had last month ordered Rajab freed pending the trial on charges of spreading false information.

But the prosecution decided to keep Rajab in custody pending questioning in another cyber crime case on a similar charge of "spreading false news about the situation in the kingdom".

Rajab has been repeatedly detained for organising protests and publishing tweets deemed insulting to Bahrain's authorities.

He previously served two years in jail on charges of taking part in unauthorised protests in the Shiite-majority kingdom.

Since February 14, 2011, thousands of anti-regime protesters have held numerous demonstrations in Bahrain on an almost daily basis, calling on the al-Khalifa rulers to relinquish power. 

In March that year, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, themselves repressive Arab regimes, were deployed to the country to assist Manama in its crackdown on protests. Hundreds of Bahraini activists have been imprisoned and suppressed. 

On June 20, Bahraini authorities stripped Sheikh Qassim of his citizenship, less than a week after suspending the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, the country’s main opposition bloc, and dissolving the Islamic Enlightenment Institution founded by Qassim, and the opposition al-Risala Islamic Association. 

Over the past few weeks, demonstrators have held sit-in protests outside Sheikh Qassim’s home to denounce his citizenship removal. 

Bahrain has also sentenced Sheikh Ali Salman, another revered opposition cleric, to nine years in prison on charges of seeking regime change and collaborating with foreign powers, which he has denied. 

Sheikh Salman was the secretary general of the al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, which was Bahrain’s main opposition bloc before being dissolved by the regime.

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