Bahraini rights advocate Nabeel Rajab, who played a key role in 2011 anti-government protests, was freed on Tuesday from jail after serving time over tweets critical of the Saudi Arabian-led military campaign in Yemen.
“Nabeel has been released and he is on his way home now,” his lawyer, Mohammed Al Jishi, said, adding that Rajab would serve the remaining three years of a five-year sentence in an “alternative” or non-custodial setting.
Rajab, a leading figure in the Shiite-led protests against the Gulf state’s Sunni-minority monarchy, had been convicted of insulting the state, spreading false news and “publicly offending a foreign country,” a reference to Saudi Arabia.
The court convicted him of endangering Bahrain’s military operations in Yemen.
Manama is part of the Saudi Arabian-led coalition that has been fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015.
Rajab also wrote on Twitter criticism of the Bahraini government’s treatment of prisoners.
He had spent four years in jail after earlier being convicted over media interviews deemed critical of the government.
The UN had led calls for his release, condemning his detention as “arbitrary” and “discriminatory.”
“Nabeel is a dedicated and passionate activist who has always advocated for human rights in Bahrain,” Human Rights Watch researcher Aya Majzoub said. “He should not have been imprisoned in the first place, but we are glad that he is finally reunited with his family.”
US Senator Chris Murphy, who visited Rajab’s family home when he traveled to Bahrain to attend a security conference last year, welcomed the release as proof of the power of international pressure.
“Nabeel Rajab has been released from prison,” the senator wrote on Twitter. “Will serve out the rest of his sentence at home. This is good news and a sign of what can happen when the United States makes trouble over political prisoners.”
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