Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) organized an event to voice solidarity with detained prominent human rights activist, Nabeel Rajab, on his birthday. The seminar took place in Denmark's capital Copenhagen.

The event entitled "Opinions are not Crimes" was held Thursday night (September 1, 2016), and was attended by Amnesty International, CIVICUS Alliance, The Gulf Center for Human Rights, and the organizer of the event BCHR. The event was opened by a documentary by VICE entitled "Bahrain: An Inconvenient Uprising," which was aired at the end of 2014.

Following the short documentary, Trine Christensen, the Secretary General at Amnesty International Denmark, said in her address that Bahrain is using travel bans and revocation of citizenships against its critics, adding that Nabeel Rajab is a prisoner of opinion, also calling on the authorities to drop all charges raised against Rajab and immediately release him.

For her part, policy and research officer at CIVICUS, Sara Barndt, highlighted the violations that her organization has reported in Bahrain in the field of freedom of opinion and expression, noting the numbers, patterns and forms of abuses.

As for the Deputy President of the BCHR, Activist Sayed Yousif Al-Muhafdha, he first listed the BCHR member who were targeted by the Government in Bahrain and then spoke of the human rights defenders who we also targeted by the government, in general, and banned from leaving the country. He highlighted Nabeel Rajab as an example of those who are criminalized by the authorities over their opinions. Al-Muhafdha further discussed the the center's latest report on Internet freedom.

Head of the Gulf Center for Human Rights Maryam Al-Khawaja also gave an address, in which she shed light on the stances of European and Western countries towards the Bahraini uprising, and human rights abuses in Bahrain, pointing out that there is a "double standard" when dealing with human rights records in oil-rich Gulf states, compared to other countries in the world.

The event was concluded by a call to voice solidarity with activist Nabeel Rajab and demand his immediate release.

Arabic Version