A prominent Bahraini human rights activist has been sentenced to three years in prison for attending “illegal demonstrations”, sparking outcry across the world.

Nabeel Rajab, an activist who heads the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was already serving a prison sentence for posting anti-government comments on Twitter (see his account here).

Rajab’s sentencing comes as US Congress members wrote to Bahrain’s King Hamad al-Khalifa, requesting that he

“unconditionally and immediately release all Bahrainis being held for crimes related to freedom of expression.”

See the full letter here.

Maryam Khawaja, acting president of the BCHR, said,

“The Bahraini judicial system has been used as a tool to harass democracy activists”.

“The Bahraini government has been talking about how they are committed to reforms . . . They are very good at promises but not at implementing their promises.”

She also criticised the US government’s alleged silence over the anti-government protests and subsequent crackdown, commenting,

“The US silence against the government abuses emboldened the government.”

“They would not dare sentence such prominent rights activist that harshly before, but now they know they can get away with it because the US is silent.”

Brian Dooley of US-based Human Rights First also commented,

"This is a shocking verdict, even by Bahrain's own abysmal standards on human rights. The regime can't be seen serious about human rights reform when it jails one of the world's most prominent activists to prison for three years."

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights President Souhayr Belhassen also called for Rajab to be released, stating,

"We hope that the international community will firmly condemn this decision and will call for Nabeel's release," 

“Arbitrarily imprisoning human rights defenders will not stop the people from aspiring to freedom and democratic change.”