{"id":9722,"date":"2018-08-29T13:04:26","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T11:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=9722"},"modified":"2018-08-29T13:09:22","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T11:09:22","slug":"open-asiaarmanshahr-among-127-rights-groups-call-for-immediate-release-of-nabeel-rajab-after-un-group-calls-his-detention-arbitrary-and-discriminatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2018\/08\/open-asiaarmanshahr-among-127-rights-groups-call-for-immediate-release-of-nabeel-rajab-after-un-group-calls-his-detention-arbitrary-and-discriminatory\/","title":{"rendered":"OPEN ASIA|Armanshahr among 127 Rights groups call for immediate release of Nabeel Rajab after UN group calls his detention arbitrary and discriminatory"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIDH<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Paris-Geneva-Manama, 29 August 2018 \u2013 For the second time since 2013, the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has issued an Opinion regarding the legality of the detention of Mr.\u00a0Nabeel Rajab under international human rights law. In its second opinion, the WGAD held that the detention was not only arbitrary but also discriminatory. The 127 signatory human rights groups welcome this landmark opinion, made public on 13 August 2018, recognising the role played by human rights defenders in society and the need to protect them. We call upon the Bahraini Government to immediately release Nabeel Rajab in accordance with this latest request.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

In its\u00a0Opinion (A\/HRC\/WGAD\/2018\/13)<\/a>, the WGAD considered that the detention of Mr.\u00a0Nabeel Rajab\u00a0<\/strong>contravenes Articles 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 11, 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Articles 2, 9, 10, 14, 18, 19 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Bahrain in 2006. The WGAD requested the Government of Bahrain to \u201crelease Mr.\u00a0Rajab immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

This constitutes a landmark opinion as it recognises that the detention of Mr.\u00a0Nabeel Rajab \u2013 President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), Deputy Secretary General of FIDH and a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Advisory Committee \u2013 is arbitrary and in violation of international law, as it results from his exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression as well as freedom of thought and conscience, and furthermore constitutes \u201cdiscrimination based on political or other opinion, as well as on his status as a human rights defender.\u201d Mr.\u00a0Nabeel Rajab\u2019s detention has therefore been found arbitrary under both categories II and V as defined by the WGAD.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

Mr.\u00a0Nabeel Rajab was arrested on 13 June 2016 and has been detained since then by the Bahraini authorities on several freedom of expression-related charges that inherently violate his basic human rights. On 15 January 2018, the Court of Cassation upheld his two-year prison sentence, convicting him of \u201cspreading false news and rumors about the internal situation in the Kingdom, which undermines state prestige and status\u201d \u2013 in reference to television interviews he gave in 2015 and 2016. Most recently on 5 June 2018, the Manama Appeals Court upheld his five years\u2019 imprisonment sentence for \u201cdisseminating false rumors in time of war\u201d; \u201coffending a foreign country\u201d \u2013 in this case Saudi Arabia; and for \u201cinsulting a statutory body\u201d, in reference to comments made on Twitter in March 2015 regarding alleged torture in Jaw prison and criticising the killing of civilians in the Yemen conflict by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition. The Twitter case will next be heard by the Court of Cassation, the final opportunity for the authorities to acquit him.<\/p>\n

The WGAD underlined that \u201cthe penalisation of a media outlet, publishers or journalists solely for being critical of the government or the political social system espoused by the government can never be considered to be a necessary restriction of freedom of expression,\u201d and emphasised that \u201cno such trial of Mr.\u00a0Rajab should have taken place or take place in the future.\u201d It added that the WGAD \u201ccannot help but notice that Mr.\u00a0Rajab\u2019s political views and convictions are clearly at the centre of the present case and that the authorities have displayed an attitude towards him that can only be characterised as discriminatory.\u201d The WGAD added that several cases concerning Bahrain had already been brought before it in the past five years, in which WGAD \u201chas found the Government to be in violation of its human rights obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OPEN ASIA|Armanshahr among 127 Rights groups call for immediate release of Nabeel Rajab after UN group (WGAD) calls his detention arbitrary and discriminatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":9723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,64,63,54,90,89,34,46,85,43,65,50,53,88,10],"tags":[247,954,474,955],"class_list":["post-9722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armanshahr-campaigns","category-armanshahropen-asia","category-calls-and-statements","category-death-penalty-torture-and-other-inhuman-punishments","category-editor-selection","category-events","category-fidh-news","category-freedom-of-expression-and-media","category-human-rights","category-human-rights-online-library","category-others","category-political-civil-economic-social-and-cultural-rights","category-prison-prisoners-and-enforced-disappearance","category-slider","category-world","tag-bahrain-human-rights-defender","tag-joint-statement","tag-nabeel-rajab","tag-wgad","country-bahrain","Documents-conventions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9722"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9725,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9722\/revisions\/9725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}