Urgent Appeal to ICRC for Immediate Action on Safety and Protection of Nabeel Rajab

European-Bahraini Organization for Human Rights
19 August, 2012

Urgent appeal: to the United Nations and the Red Cross: The leader of the human rights movement Nabeel Rajab is put in solitary confinement facing humanitarian persecution, and his imprisonment is a setback in the history of human rights defenders.

(Bern – Switzerland 21.08.2012): We the European- Bahraini Organziation for Human Right appeal to the United Nations and the International Red Cross for urgent intervention and immediate action to demand the release of human rights defender and the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Mr. Nabeel Rajab, who was arrested solely for exercising the right to freedom of opinion and peaceful expression, whether online or through demonstrations calling for democracy and justice in Bahrain. We also urge the United Nations Council for Human Rights, the European Parliament, and all concerned governments, to exert their influence on the Bahraini authorities to stop human rights violations and get Mr. Rajab out of solitary confinement.

The moment of Mr. Nabeel Rajab’s arrest from home

Human rights defender Mr. Nabeel Rajab was subjected to violations of his civil and humanitarian rights as a citizen and defender of human rights starting with a media campaign to tarnish his work and discredit him the official media in Bahrain, as well as harassing, arresting, and beating members of the center he heads. He was violently arrested from his home during the period of Emergency Law “national safety” in March 2011, and was tortured for hours at an unknown location, threatened and then released. That was followed by directly targeting him physically in marches for democracy through beatings, arbitrary arrests, and morally through defamation and falsification of the facts, and later unfair trials sentencing him to three years in prison on the date of 08.16.2012 to suffer from abuse and persecution in prison, shocking the international community and human rights organizations. International organizations repeatedly called on the Bahraini authorities to release him with no response to these claims, which have become of no matter and importance to the Bahraini government. Nabeel Rajab’s family wrote an open letter to the U.S. and British governments and all governments that have influence in Bahrain and the United Nations and all human rights organizations, regional and international.

Mr.Nabeel Rajab with his wife Mrs.Sumayah Rajab

Mrs. Sumayah Rajab, the wife of Mr. Nabeel Rajab told the European-Bahraini Organization for Human Rights about her husband’s circumstances in prison saying: My husband Nabeel Rajab called and was cautious in his words, he could not talk about his situation in prison, and when I asked him: Are you in solitary confinement he said: yes. She added that Nabeel Rajab said he was just taken out of solitary confinement and newspapers were prevented from him, then the call with Nabeel suddenly dropped and lasted less than two minutes. …more