73 Facts About Nabeel Rajab

Nabeel Rajab is a Bahraini human rights activist and opposition figure.

Nabeel Rajab is the president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch's Middle East Division, deputy secretary general for the International Federation for Human Rights, member of the Advisory Board of the Bahrain Rehabilitation and Anti-Violence Organization, co-founder of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, and former chairman of CARAM Asia.

Nabeel Rajab has used social networking as a tool in human rights campaigning, which has led to conflicts with the Bahraini authorities.

Nabeel Rajab's activism has been acknowledged by international human rights organizations such as Front Line Defenders, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders, which have highlighted his targeting by the Bahraini government.

Nabeel Rajab has critiqued not only the Bahraini government on its human rights record but the stance of Bahrain's allies, including the United States.

Nabeel Rajab was released from prison on 9 June 2020.

Nabeel Rajab was born on 1 September 1964 in Bahrain to a middle-class family.

Nabeel Rajab finished his secondary school education in 1983 in Bahrain, specializing in science.

Nabeel Rajab received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History from the University of Pune in India in 1987.

Nabeel Rajab earns his living as a "building contractor by trade".

In February 2012, Nabeel Rajab announced his intention to close down his business due to what he called government harassment.

Nabeel Rajab is a nephew of Mohamed Hasan Jawad, one of the Bahrain Thirteen who were imprisoned for taking part in the uprising in 2011.

Nabeel Rajab is a cousin of Hussain Jawad, a prominent human rights activist arrested in February 2015.

Nabeel Rajab traveled to India to study Political Science and History.

Nabeel Rajab received his bachelor's degree but financial problems after his father became ill prevented him obtaining a master's degree.

Nabeel Rajab became involved in international campaigning on specific issues.

In 1996 Nabeel Rajab discussed the idea of setting up a human rights organization with Ali Rabea and Ibrahim Kamal Al Den.

Nabeel Rajab subsequently fell out with some of the other founders.

In 2002, following wide-ranging political reforms by the Bahraini government which allowed independent human rights groups to operate, Nabeel Rajab worked with Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and others to found the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, a nonprofit non-governmental organization which works to promote human rights in Bahrain.

Nabeel Rajab was Training Program Officer and Senior Researcher at BCHR.

Nabeel Rajab later became vice president and Head of International Relations until he later took over from Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja as BCHR president, a position he still held as of August 2012.

Nabeel Rajab became the president of the newly founded rights group, and remains a Founding Director.

Nabeel Rajab was one of the founders of the first migrant workers' protection committee in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, the Migrant Workers Protection Group.

In October 2009 Nabeel Rajab was elected Chairperson of CARAM Asia for 2 years.

Nabeel Rajab drew attention to the exceptional vulnerability of migrant workers in countries with systemic abuses and rights violations.

Since December 2009, Nabeel Rajab has been a member of the Board of Advisors of the Middle East and North African division of Human Rights Watch, a position he still held in February 2012.

Nabeel Rajab is a member of the Arab working group for media monitoring.

In 2011, Nabeel Rajab received the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award, presented annually by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

In 2012, the BCHR led by Nabeel Rajab won the Index on Censorship's Freedom of Expression Awards.

BCHR stated that Nabeel Rajab suffered a spinal injury, a broken finger, a fractured arm and a head injury and was hospitalised for two weeks as a result.

Gulf Daily News published Nabeel Rajab's photo naming him as one of the "supporters" of aforementioned network.

Nabeel Rajab was subject to a travel ban during this period.

Nabeel Rajab was one of the few who kept criticizing the government during state of emergency.

Unlike other opposition parties who organized protests in Shia villages, Nabeel Rajab insisted on staging them within the capital.

Nabeel Rajab led many protests, several of them in Manama, putting him in standoffs with security forces.

Nabeel Rajab was detained and his files and a computer were confiscated.

Nabeel Rajab claimed that they kicked him when he refused to say that he loved the prime minister.

Nabeel Rajab was taken to a Ministry of Interior detention facility in Adliya, a suburb of Manama.

The Ministry of Interior announced that Nabeel Rajab would be referred to the Military Prosecutor for legal action.

Later in the month Nabeel Rajab stated that his uncle, Mohammad Hassan Mohammad Jawad, an arrested activist, was being tortured because of their relationship.

On 6 January 2012, after leading a night peaceful protest in Fareeq el-Makharqa in Manama, Nabeel Rajab was hospitalized and briefly detained with injuries from an alleged beating, which the opposition blamed on security forces.

Via their Twitter account, the Ministry of the Interior denied the accusation, saying police found Nabeel Rajab "lying on the ground" and referred him to hospital.

Nabeel Rajab explained that he took this move to be a model to encourage people from different ages to take part in protests.

Julian Assange said he believed Nabeel Rajab's arrest was linked to his appearance on Assange's World Tomorrow television talk-show and Project on Middle East Democracy associated it with an interview with the BBC's HARDtalk.

The online newspaper Manama Voice identified Nabeel Rajab's tweets criticizing the Ministry of Interior as the likely cause.

Nabeel Rajab pleaded not guilty to the charge against him, but the prosecutor decided to keep him in detention for 7 days.

Nabeel Rajab's lawyer said the verdict was unexpected because the charge of insult was normally punished by a fine.

Nabeel Rajab told them he was in solitary confinement with no access to newspapers.

Nabeel Rajab said that action had been taken against him because although claiming to be a human rights activist he had in fact been engaging in political activity, a justification similar to that offered by an officially-appointed MP for the trial of Bahrain health workers.

Nabeel Rajab's wife accused the minister of lying to the international media and fabricating film footage played during a press conference.

Nabeel Rajab said that the court proceedings had clearly demonstrated the absence of justice and an independent judiciary.

Nabeel Rajab's son quoted his father as saying, "Jail me 3 years or 30, I will never give up".

Mr Jishi, Nabeel Rajab's lawyer, said the government was "sending a message", further emphasised by the King of Bahrain's speech that week referring to a duty to "protect peaceful, good-natured citizens who do not seek to usurp power".

BCHR said that the only reason Nabeel Rajab had been targeted was to prevent him from continuing his legitimate and peaceful human rights work.

The Al Wefaq political party said Nabeel Rajab's sentence was further evidence of the government's unwillingness to find a solution to the crisis, noting that political detainees were prisoners of conscience and the regime had no right to use them as hostages "as part of its security solution to the ongoing political crisis".

The State Department called on the government of Bahrain "to take steps to build confidence across Bahraini society" and "begin a really meaningful dialogue with the political opposition and civil society" as actions like Nabeel Rajab's sentencing would cause further divisions within Bahraini society.

Nabeel Rajab highlighted Michael Posner's testimony in which he stated that Rajab's case was "a bit more complicated" and Victoria Nuland's answers to reporters in which "it took [her] so long" to call for Rajab's release.

Nabeel Rajab added that the regime could not be seen as serious about human rights reform when it jailed one of the world's most prominent activists to prison for three years.

Human Rights Watch argued that the government had yet to show that Nabeel Rajab had done any more than exercise his right to free expression and peaceful assembly and demanded his release.

Nabeel Rajab had expected to be released, according to his wife.

Nabeel Rajab's lawyer stated that the court gave no reason for rejecting early release.

On 24 May 2014, Nabeel Rajab was released from prison after serving his full term of 2 years.

Nabeel Rajab was happy to be out and called for the release of other prisoners and for "respect for human rights".

Nabeel Rajab had just returned from a two-month advocacy campaign in Europe in which he criticized the government and called for international action against it.

Nabeel Rajab was charged with "publicly insulting official institutions" after he had criticized the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense on Twitter for allegedly being the "first ideological incubator" of Bahrainis who had joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The Public Prosecutor said Nabeel Rajab had acknowledged publishing the comments on Twitter.

Nabeel Rajab said he was targeted because of his peaceful advocacy for human rights and democracy and that he does not have any regrets for doing so.

On 21 February 2018, Nabeel Rajab was sentenced by the High Criminal Court of Bahrain to a further five years in jail for tweets and documentation of human rights violations.

Nabeel Rajab was charged under the Bahrain penal code with "offending a foreign country".

Nabeel Rajab was critical of the US role in Bahrain throughout the uprising.

Nabeel Rajab is an active user of online media in his human rights work, in particular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Nabeel Rajab stopped posting in Internet forums in order to encourage support for social network-based campaigning.

Nabeel Rajab devotes significant time and effort to his Twitter account, created in March 2009, posting mostly in Arabic, and in the 2011 Forbes magazine list of the 100 top Arabs on Twitter was ranked number 43, with 36,040 followers.