Nabeel Rajab, who is serving a five-year jail sentence for spreading false information on social media about the Saudi-led military action in Yemen, posted false and malicious tweets harming civil peace and social harmony on Twitter, said the General Directorate of Anti-corruption and Economic and Electronic Crimes in response to a call by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on January 4 to release him.
“They (tweets) amount to legal violations, which do not fall within the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Bahrain’s Constitution,” it said.
“In March 2015, he posted images of bodies claiming they were consequences of the war in Yemen, but they were actually from Syria published in September, 2014. He posted images of bodies again on March 31, 2015 claiming that they were the result of the war in Yemen, but were from Gaza.
“He also re-tweeted tweets and attached with them images of wounded people, claiming that hundreds of inmates of the Jaw prison were injured in attacks and torture.
“These claims were untrue and an insult to the Interior Ministry and the General Directorate of Reformation and Rehabilitation. An investigation showed that he was the one who had posted the tweets, and legal steps were taken to arrest him,” the directorate added.
He was found guilty and was jailed by the High Criminal Court on February 21. He lodged an appeal at the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court, which upheld the initial sentence.
A final appeal was then lodged at the Cassation Court, which was also rejected.
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