A Message from Nabeel Rajab

Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human rights, is serving a two-year sentence for tweeting about protests. He has been in custody since July 2012. On Sunday March 31, he called Human Rights First from Jaw Prison to thank us for our work on Bahrain–listen to his short message here.

Two years ago, President Barack Obama told the Bahraini government “the only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”

The regime restarted its dialogue with some opposition groups this year. This is an encouraging step, but real progress will only happen if the regime releases its prominent dissidents from jail and allows them to join the dialogue.

Urge President Obama to demand that the Bahraini Kingdom release dissidents jailed on politically motivated charges.