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June 13th, 2016 
Awake Goy “Rajab has just been arrested and his house was searched,” his wife Sumaya Rajab wrote on Twitter.
The authorities also seized all the activist’s electronic devices, without explanation, his family said, as cited by the Middle East Eye.
The arrest was also confirmed by the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), a group working with victims of human rights abuse in Bahrain.
“Abhorrent and vindictive arrest of Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain as civil society faces clampdown ahead of UN Human Rights Council session,” the group wrote on Twitter.
Rajab, a prominent human rights activist and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), has repeatedly advocated freedom of expression and debate.
READ MORE: ‘I will continue tweeting, I will continue criticizing’ – Bahrain activist Nabeel Rajab
Rajab has organized numerous protests against the Bahraini regime since 2011 and has been in and out of jail on numerous occasions. He was arrested in 2012 and spent two years in prison for his tweet criticizing the government and three protest-related charges. He was re-arrested in 2014 for several months for criticizing the authorities on Twitter.
He was sentenced in 2015 to six months in prison for a tweet considered insulting to the Gulf Kingdom’s Ministries of Interior and Defense. His tweet suggested that Bahraini security institutions could act as an “ideological incubator” for terrorism and Islamic State militants.
Later in 2015, the activist was pardoned by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. However, Rajab said he still faced a sentence of up to 10 years for insulting the government institution.
Speaking on his pardon to RT, he said that he will continue tweeting and criticizing Bahraini authorities. “I’m going to continue my human rights struggle, and my struggle for democracy, and human rights in this part of the world,” he said.
READ MORE: ‘I could be arrested any moment’ – Bahraini opposition activist Nabeel Rajab to RT
Bahrain, an island kingdom, has been repeatedly criticized for suppressing basic freedoms. According to such groups as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), the kingdom continues to imprison activists arbitrarily and subject them to torture.
Anti-government protests have been taking place in Bahrain since the start of the Arab Spring uprising across the region. The kingdom, which hosts the US Fifth Fleet, brutally cracked down on a popular uprising in 2011. The majority Shia population of Bahrain complains of discrimination and lack of democracy in the oil-rich kingdom, while the Sunni monarchy often accuses its archrival Iran – a Shia powerhouse – of instigating unrest in the country.
Source Article from https://www.rt.com/news/346448-bahrain-detain-activist-rajab/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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