US has already called for Bahrain to free Nabeel Rajab who faces up to 15 years in jail
More than 20 MPs from seven parties in the UK parliament have urged the British foreign secretary to echo US government calls for the release of the Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab.
Bahrain’s criminal court on Thursday postponed his trial to 28 December, when he is expected to be sentenced.
Rajab, who faces up to 15 years in jail for comments made on Twitter criticising the war in Yemen, has been held in pre-trial detention since June. He is also accused of “defaming the state” by publishing “false news .. and malicious rumours that undermine the prestige of the kingdom” in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
He was arrested on separate charges of “spreading false information and rumours with the aim of discrediting the state”.
In September, the US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the government called for the immediate release of Rajab, but the UK has thus far refused to do likewise.
Amnesty International has called the charges a “barefaced assault on freedom of expression”. Human Rights Watch’s executive director, Ken Roth, named Rajab as one of two human rights activists currently imprisoned whom he thought most resembled “the next Nelson Mandela”.
In a letter to Boris Johnson ahead of the trial, which had been due to be held on Thursday, MPs from the Conservatives, Labour, the Scottish National party, the Democratic Unionist party, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the SDLP asked the Foreign Office to express its concern.
“We urge you […] to make it clear to Bahraini officials that the United Kingdom wishes to see his unconditional release from prison, and for the charges brought against him, which are related to his right to freedom of expression and freedom of speech, to be dropped,” it reads.
MPs who have signed the letter include Labour’s Andy Slaughter and Ann Clywd, the Lib Dems’ Tom Brake and Alastair Carmichael, the Greens’ Caroline Lucas and the Conservatives’ Tania Mathias.
During Theresa May’s visit to Bahrain last week, her spokeswoman would not say if any specific cases had been raised in bilaterals, but said the UK did raise human rights cases as part of a wider engagement on Gulf reforms.
Rights campaigners in Bahrain have argued that, although the UK has been engaging closely with Bahraini authorities on judicial and police reform since 2012, its engagement has not prevented crackdowns on journalists and pro-democracy activists in the country.
Since 2011, Rajab has faced multiple prosecutions and prison sentences for his activism. He was banned from travelling in 2014 and has been unable to leave the country. His health is said to have deteriorated since being placed in detention earlier this year.
The SNP’s Margaret Ferrier, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and human rights in the Gulf, who coordinated the letter, said: “This is a matter of freedom of speech and expression. Nabeel Rajab is highly regarded as a prominent human rights activist, and these charges are little more than an attempt by Bahraini authorities to silence a dissenting voice.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “We have seen how Theresa May lashed Boris Johnson over his comments on Saudi. Nabeel Rajab criticised Saudi Arabia and Bahrain over their bombardment in Yemen and is facing prison for it.
“If May or her government fail to publicly call for his release, Bahrain will take it as a green light for their repression.”
