Nabeel Rajab during a protest in London in September (Photo: Milana Knezevic)

Index on Censorship award winner Nabeel Rajab was told today to expect a decision in his case on March 15. The travel ban against Rajab is still in place.

Rajab was handed down a six month suspended sentence pending payment of a fine in January. He is seeking to overturn that verdict, which stems from a tweet that both the ministry of interior and the ministry of defence allege “denigrated government institutions”.

many #Bahrain men who joined #terrorism & #ISIS came from security institutions and those institutions were the first ideological incubator

— Nabeel Rajab (@NABEELRAJAB) September 28, 2014

Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a member of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Advisory Board, has continuously been targeted by Bahraini authorities over his human rights campaigning work. He reported on 26 February he had again been summoned by the police.

“Just to inform you that I was summoned today to attend the police station at the same time – and I came to know that the new charge against me will incitement of hatred against the regime,” he wrote in an email to supporters. On Sunday March 1, he was allowed to leave the police station after questioning.

Rajab was released in May 2014 after spending two years in prison on spurious charges including writing offensive tweets and taking part in illegal protests.

This article was posted on March 4, 2015 at indexoncensorship.org