Co-Chair Jim McGovern Calls for Unconditional Release of Nabeel Rajab

Once again Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, has been arrested for exercising his fundamental right to freedom of expression. Today his home was surrounded by security forces and he was taken away. The Ministry of Interior has accused Rajab of "publishing information that would harm the civil order and denigrated an official institution," because he reported on the beating and torture of prisoners in Jaw Prison. Four hours after his arrest, Rajab had not been granted access to his lawyer.

Rajab has been regularly targeted for his peaceful human rights activities since large scale pro-democracy protests exploded in 2011, and has already spent two years in prison. With this outrageous arrest, the government of Bahrain demonstrates once again that it is incapable of tolerating its citizens' most basic exercise of democratic rights.

I call for the immediate and unconditional release of Nabeel Rajab and all other prisoners of conscience in Bahrain.