{"id":15730,"date":"2012-07-09T12:46:09","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T20:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=15730"},"modified":"2012-07-09T12:46:09","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T20:46:09","slug":"us-supported-bahrain-is-crushing-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/09\/us-supported-bahrain-is-crushing-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Supported Bahrain is Crushing Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/security\/2012\/07\/09\/513010\/video-bahrain-rights-activist-imprisoned-for-tweet\/\">Via ThinkProgress<\/a>, Bahraini\u00a0human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was arrested today for the crime of insulting the monarchy in a tweet. He is expected to be in jail for up to 3 months, but knowing the US-supported Bahraini regime&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2011\/11\/01\/bahrain-probe-finds-torture-was-systematic\/\">penchant for torture<\/a>, Rajab could be in real trouble.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Rajab, who heads up the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bahrainrights.org\/en\">Bahrain Centre for Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0and leads\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/security\/2012\/03\/09\/441712\/thousands-bahrain-dictatorship\/\">pro-democracy demonstrations<\/a>, has faced a bevy of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/security\/2012\/06\/19\/501934\/gulf-arab-twitter-rights\/\">legal troubles this year for a tweet<\/a>\u00a0calling for the Prime Minister \u2014 a member of the royal family \u2014 to step down. \u201cNormally the charge of insult leads to just a fine. So for me [the prison sentence is] a surprise,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/middle-east-live\/2012\/jul\/09\/syria-libya-egypt-live#block-9\">Rajab\u2019s lawyer said<\/a>. The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thecable.foreignpolicy.com\/posts\/2012\/01\/09\/state_department_stands_up_for_bahrain_human_rights_activist\">U.S. government stood up for Rajab<\/a>\u00a0when he was beaten by Bahraini security forces in January. Here\u2019s a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eISGHEf2kCk&amp;feature=youtu.be\">cell phone video<\/a>\u00a0of Rajab being arrested by masked police today\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.enduringamerica.com\/home\/2012\/7\/9\/syria-and-beyond-live-coverage-un-envoy-annan-returns-to-dam.html#1244\">posted by EA WorldView<\/a>:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eISGHEf2kCk\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Rajab <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HdVoBlABSpc\">appeared<\/a> on Julian Assange&#8217;s RT show in May. See <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/05\/08\/bahrain-vows-harsher-crackdown\/\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/05\/18\/tens-of-thousands-protest-in-bahrain-against-saudi-union\/\">here<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/09\/what-protests-in-bahrain-are-really-about\/\">here<\/a> for more of Antiwar.com&#8217;s recent coverage of Bahrain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via ThinkProgress, Bahraini\u00a0human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was arrested today for the crime of insulting the monarchy in a tweet. He is expected to be in jail for up to 3 months, but knowing the US-supported Bahraini regime&#8217;s penchant for torture, Rajab could be in real trouble. Rajab, who heads up the\u00a0Bahrain Centre for Human [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15731,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730\/revisions\/15731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15730"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}