Dubai: The trial in Bahrain of rights activist Nabeel Rajab was postponed until August 2 on Tuesday and a request for his release rejected, his lawyer said.
Bahrain has made no public statements on Rajab’s case, but his lawyer has said charges against him relate to anti-government tweets he allegedly published last year, including one accusing the security forces of torturing detainees.
Rajab was a leading figure in a 2011 pro-democracy protests and he has been detained more than once.
The trial was postponed until August 2 and a request for his release by the defence was turned down, his lawyer Mohammad Al Jishi wrote on Twitter without elaborating.
In recent weeks, a court shut down a main Shiite opposition society and the interior ministry stripped the spiritual leader of the island’s Shiites of his citizenship.
Violence between Shiites and security forces has continued on the island since the 2011 protests were quelled with the help of Gulf states.
Rajab was taken to hospital for a day late last month for what his supporters said was an irregular heart beat, but a spokesman for the prisons authority described his condition as “normal,” in an emailed statement.
Bahraini rights groups said authorities on Monday freed Ebrahim Sharif, former head of the secular Waad party, after he served a year in jail for what state news agency BNA said was publicising “hatred of the regime”.
