بحرین: رسیدگی به پرونده‌ی نبیل رجب تا ۱۱ سپتامبر ۲۰۱۷ به تعویق افتاد

10/08/2017
درخواست فوری
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اطلاعات تازه
BHR 006 / 0812 / OBS 048.30

حبس خودسرانه/آزار قضایی
بحرین
۹ اوت ۲۰۱۷

برنامه نظارت بر حمایت از مدافعان حقوق بشر، که برنامه مشترک «فدراسیون بین‌المللی جامعه‌های حقوق بشر» (FIDH) و «سازمان جهانی مبارزه با شکنجه» (OMCT) است، اطلاعات تازه‌ای دریافت کرده و از شما درخواست می‌کند فوری در باره‌ی موضوع زیر در بحرین اقدام کنید.

اطلاعات تازه

برنامه‌ی نظارت بر حمایت از مدافعان حقوق بشر از طریق منابع مورد اطمینان درباره‌ی تداوم آزار قضایی و حبس خودسرانه‌ی نبیل رجب، یکی از بنیان‌گذاران و رئیس مرکز حقوق بشر بحرین، بنیان‌گذار مرکز حقوق بشر خلیج، معاون دبیر کل فدراسیون بین‌المللی جامعه‌های حقوق بشر و عضو کمیته‌ی مشورتی خاورمیانه‌ی دیده‌بان حقوق بشر مطلع شده است. نبیل رجب یکی از برجسته‌ترین مدافعان حقوق بشر این کشور است که نقض حقوق بشر در زندان جاو و مشارکت بحرین در بمباران یمن به توسط ائتلاف زیر رهبری عربستان سعودی را محکوم کرده است.

بر اساس اطلاعات دریافتی، دادگاهی در بحرین روز ۸ آگوست ۲۰۱۷ پانزدهمین نشست رسیدگی به به‌اصطلاح «پرونده‌ی توییتر» را علیه آقای نبیل رجب برگزار کرد و رأی به تعویق رسیدگی تا ۱۱ سپتامبر ۲۰۱۷ داد، با وجود این‌که وکلای وی برگزاری نشست بعدی را در تاریخ زودتری درخواست کرده بودند. دادگاه در عین حال اعلام کرد که در آن تاریخ قاضی‌های دیگری مسؤول خواهند بود.

نبیل رجب که در دادگاه حاضر بود، آشکار وزن کم کرده است و صدایش ضعیف‌تر از معمول بود.

به علاوه، وکلای آقای رجب دو هفته از دیدار با موکل خود محروم بوده‌اند.

آقای نبیل رجب در به‌اصطلاح «پرونده‌ی توییتر» به «اهانت به نهادی دولتی» (ماده‌ی ۲۱۶ قانون مجازات)، «نشر شایعه‌های کذب در زمان جنگ» (ماده‌ی ۱۳۳) و «توهین به کشور خارجی» [عربستان سعودی]» (ماده‌ی ۲۱۵) متهم است که مجازات آنها تا ۱۵ سال زندان است. این اتهام‌ها به پیام‌های توییتری او در محکوم کردن شکنجه‌ی زندانیان در زندان جاو این کشور و نقض حقوق بشر در حمله‌های هوایی ائتلاف زیر رهبری عربستان سعودی در یمن مربوط است (نگاه کنید به اطلاعات پیشینه).

رسیدگی به «پرونده‌ی توییتر» از ژوئیه ۲۰۱۶ در جریان است. به علاوه، دادگاه مقدماتی کیفری منامه روز ۱۰ ژوئیه ۲۰۱۷ حکم دو سال زندان نبیل رجب را در چارچوب «پرونده‌ی مصاحبه‌های تلویزیونی» صادر کرد. وی در دست‌کم دو پرونده‌ی دیگر مربوط به مقاله‌های منتشر شده در روزنامه‌های خارجی در باره‌ی کارنامه‌ی حقوق بشر بحرین با اتهام‌های دیگری روبروست.

نبیل رجب که از ۱۳ ژوئن ۲۰۱۶ بازداشت شده، با وجود وضع رو به وخامت سلامتی، بخش اعظم زندان را در حبس خودسرانه و انفرادی به سر برده است. او در حال حاضر در بیمارستان نظامی منامه در حبس است.

کمیته‌ی ضد شکنجه‌ی سازمان ملل (UN CAT) در ملاحظات پایانی خود در باره‌ی بحرین در ۱۲ مه ۲۰۱۷ توجه را جلب کرد که «استفاده‌ی زیاده از حد از حبس انفرادی مجازات ظالمانه، غیرانسانی یا تحقیرآمیز یا، بسته به شرایط، حتا شکنجه به شمار می‌رود...» [1]. این کمیته اضافه کرد که از حبس خودسرانه، شکنجه و بدرفتاری با مدافعان حقوق بشر بازداشت‌شده، از جمله آقای نبیل رجب «به‌شدت نگران» است. [2]

برنامه‌ی نظارت تداوم حبس خودسرانه آقای نبیل رجب را محکوم می‌کند. به نظر می‌رسد این حبس شاهد دیگری بر روند بلندمدت آزار و تعقیب علیه او برای مجازات فعالیت به‌حق حقوق بشری اوست.

برنامه‌ی نظارت از دولت‌مردان بحرین می‌خواهد فوری و بدون‌قیدوشرط آقای نبیل رجب را آزاد کنند، به هرگونه اقدام آزاردهنده علیه او پایان دهند، و تضمین کنند که کلیه‌ی رسیدگی‌های قضایی علیه او با رعایت کامل موازین دادرسی، محاکمه‌ی عادلانه و فرض بر بی‌گناهی بر اساس حقوق مندرج و مورد محافظت در حقوق بین‌المللی انجام می‌شود.

برای اطلاعات بیشتر به فارسی نگاه کنید به: صفحه بحرین فدراسیون

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اطلاعات پیشینه

On July 9, 2012, Mr. Rajab was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for several tweets posted on his twitter account. On August 23, 2012, he was acquitted by the Higher Appeal Court.

On August 16, 2012, the Lower Criminal Court sentenced Mr. Rajab to three years of imprisonment for his participation in peaceful gatherings. In December 2012, the Appeals Court reduced the sentence to two years. He was released in May 2014 after serving his term.

On October 1, 2014, Mr. Nabeel Rajab was arrested by the General Directorate of Anti-Corruption and Economic and Electronic Security of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for “insulting a public institution” via Tweeter (Article 216). The case related to a tweet he published in September 2014, in which he criticised the military institutions for generating extremist ideologies (the “terrorism tweet” case). On November 2, 2014, the Third Lower Criminal Court ordered his release but barred him from leaving the country.

On January 20, 2015, the Third Lower Criminal Court sentenced him to six months’ imprisonment for “insulting public institutions and the army” (Article 216).

In 2015, two other criminal charges were brought against Mr. Rajab. On February 26, 2015, he was summoned for investigations for charges of “inciting hatred towards the regime” in relation to a speech he made in February 2011 during a funeral (the “funeral speech case”). To date, the police investigation is ongoing.

In addition, on April 2, 2015, Mr. Rajab was arrested, sent to the General Directorate of Anti-Corruption and Economic and Electronic Security, and placed in detention in solitary confinement in Isa Town Police Station. On April 3, 2015, he was interrogated by the CID regarding two new charges brought against him under criminal case No. 2015/38288. The first charge was “insulting a statutory body”, referring to the Ministry of Interior in relation to tweets he posted denouncing the torture of detainees at Jaw Prison (the “Jaw torture tweets” case). The second charge was “disseminating false rumours in time of war”, in relation to tweets he published about the Saudi-Arabia led coalition air strikes in Yemen (the “Yemen tweets” case).

On May 14, 2015, the Bahrain Criminal Court of Appeal upheld the six-month prison sentence (the “terrorism tweet” case).

On July 13, 2015, the King of Bahrain Hamad Ben Issa Al-Khalifa ordered through Royal Pardon the release of Mr. Nabeel Rajab for health reasons. Mr. Rajab had already served three of the six months’ jail sentence. Moreover, on the same date, the Public Prosecution imposed a travel ban against Mr. Rajab in relation to the Jaw torture and Yemen tweets cases.

In the morning of June 13, 2016, police forces reportedly led by the Cybercrime Unit arrested Mr. Nabeel Rajab, after raiding his house and seizing a number of electronic devices. In the afternoon, he was able to contact his wife by phone, and reported being detained at East Riffa police station.

On June 14, Public Prosecution remanded him in custody on accusations of “publishing and broadcasting false news that undermine the prestige of the State” (Article 134 [3]).

On June 28, 2016, he was transferred from police custody to the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) Hospital due to unprecedented heart problems. On the same day, he was examined by a doctor, and was transferred back to West Riffa police station.

On July 12, during the hearing, the judge dismissed the request for release filed by Mr. Rajab’s lawyers and the hearing was postponed to August 2.

On August 2, 2016, the High Criminal Court decided to postpone the trial to September 5 without justification.

On September 4, Mr. Rajab was summoned and questioned by CID officials. He was denied access to a lawyer on this occasion.

On September 5, 2016, the Public Prosecution announced that additional charges had been brought against Mr. Nabeel Rajab, for deliberately disseminating “false news and information and tendentious rumours that undermine the kingdom’s prestige and stature”, in relation to a letter published in The New York Times on September 4, 2016 [4], describing his judicial harassment and arbitrary detention. If convicted, this could add one year to his final sentence. In total, he now faces up to 16 years in prison.

On October 3, 2016, Mr. Nabeel Rajab underwent surgery to remove his gallbladder as a consequence of his poor detention conditions.

On October 6, 2016, the High Criminal Court decided after a five-minute hearing to postpone the trial to October 31, without providing any justification. Before the hearing, Mr. Rajab’s lawyers asked the Court a copy of his medical reports after the Ministry of Interior and the Public Prosecution failed to provide them, in clear violation of Mr. Rajab’s right to be informed of his own health condition.

Once more on October 31, 2016, the Fourth High Criminal Court postponed the trial until December 15 in order to obtain a technical expert from the Cyber-Crime Unit to determine who runs Rajab’s twitter account. Rajab arrived at the court right before the hearing, and was taken out immediately after the Judge made his pronouncements, while Rajab’s lawyers were still making applications.

On December 15, 2016, after a fifteen-minute hearing during which Mr. Nabeel Rajab was not allowed to speak, the Fourth High Criminal Court postponed the verdict until December 28, 2016 and refused to release him.

On December 21, 2016, the Cybercrime Unit of the Ministry of Interior took Mr. Nabeel Rajab out of custody for interrogation following the publication of a letter [5] quoting him in French newspaper Le Monde on December 19, 2016. The Cybercrime Unit accused Mr. Rajab of using the article to “spread false information and tendentious rumours insulting Bahrain and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States and harming their relations”. Investigations on those publications were still underway.

On December 28, 2016, Manama’s Fifth High Criminal Court acceded to an application for Mr. Nabeel Rajab’s temporary release following a failure to give any basis or any sufficient evidence of a link between him and the Twitter account with respect to the Yemeni and Jaw prison tweets.

Then Mr. Rajab was taken to the CID for temporary release. However, he was re-arrested later on the same day and referred to the Public Prosecution in relation to an investigation into televised interviews dating from 2014, which commenced in mid-June 2016.

On December 28, 2016, the Public Prosecution ordered the pre-trial detention for seven days of Mr. Nabeel Rajab, pending investigation into televised interviews dating back to 2014. These interviews with television networks Lua Lua Channel, Al Etijah TV and Al-Alam News Network were related to the human rights situation in Bahrain. In this case, Mr. Nabeel Rajab is being prosecuted on charge of “deliberately spreading false information and malicious rumours with the aim of discrediting the State” (Article 134) [6], which carries up to three years in prison.

On January 5, 2017, the Public Prosecution renewed Mr. Nabeel Rajab’s pre-trial detention for a further 15 days, pending investigation.

On April 5, 2017, Mr. Nabeel Rajab underwent surgery for bleeding ulcers at Manama’s military hospital. His family was denied the right to visit him while in hospital. Only two days after the surgery, Mr. Rajab was sent back to West Riffa police station where he has remained in solitary confinement most of the time.

On April 8, 2017, Mr. Rajab was rushed to the police hospital in an ambulance because of an infected wound that followed the operation. Since that date, Mr. Nabeel Rajab is recovering from his medical condition and remains in Qaala clinic, which is a division of the Ministry of Interior [7].

Actions requested:

Please write to the authorities of Bahrain urging them to:

The Observatory urges the authorities of Bahrain to:

i. Guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of Mr. Nabeel Rajab and that of all human rights defenders in Bahrain;

ii. Release Mr. Nabeel Rajab immediately and unconditionally, as his detention is arbitrary and its conditions amount to ill-treatment and are endangering his life;

iii. Put an end to any act of harassment, including at the judicial level, against Mr. Nabeel Rajab and against all human rights defenders in Bahrain;

iv. Conform in any circumstances with the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted on December 9, 1998 by the United Nations General Assembly, in particular its Articles 1, Article 6 (c), 9, 11 and 12.2;

v. Ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by Bahrain.

Addresses:

· Cheikh Hamad bin Issa AL KHALIFA, King of Bahrain, Fax: +973 176 64 587
· Cheikh Khaled Bin Ahmad AL KHALIFA, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fax : 00973 17 21 05 75; ofd@mofa.gov.bh
· Cheikh Khalid bin Ali AL KHALIFA, Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs, Fax: +973 175 31 284
· Lt. Gen. Cheikh Rashed bin Abdulla AL KHALIFA, Minister of Interior, Email: info@interior.gov.bh
· H.E. Mr. Yusuf Abdulkarim Bucheeri, Permanent Mission of Bahrain to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Fax: + 41 22 758 96 50. Email: info@bahrain-mission.ch
· H.E. Ahmed Mohammed Yousif Aldoseri, Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the Kingdom of Belgium, Fax: 0032 (0) 26472274; E-mail: Brussels.mission@mofa.gov.bh

***
Paris-Geneva, August 9, 2017

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and FIDH. The objective of this programme is to intervene to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights defenders. FIDH and OMCT are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu , the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented by international civil society.

To contact the Observatory, call the emergency line:
E-mail: Appeals@fidh-omct.org
Tel and fax FIDH: + 33 (0) 1 43 55 25 18 / +33 1 43 55 18 80
Tel and fax OMCT: + 41 (0) 22 809 49 39 / + 41 22 809 49 29

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