Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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38. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the human rights defender Mr. Nabeel Rajab will be tried in Bahrain on 20 January 2015 on charges of insulting the Bahraini security services in a Twitter post and that Mr. Rajab visited Europe in September 2014 in an advocacy mission to European capitals; if he has discussed the upcoming trial with his European counterparts; and if he will raise concerns over the case with the Bahraini Government. [2644/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I am familiar with the case of Mr Nabeel Rajab and the circumstances of his arrest last year, and that the charges against him reportedly relate to ‘publically insulting official institutions’ under Article 216 of the Bahraini penal code on foot of an opinion he expressed on Twitter.

On Tuesday of this week, Mr Rajab was reportedly sentenced to six months in prison. The apparent arrest, detention and prosecution of Mr Rajab for the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression is of great concern.

Previously, Mr Rajab was released from prison in May 2014, and, thereafter, he continued his work as an important voice on human rights matters in Bahrain, including, inter alia, by his participation in the work of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Officials from my Department met with Mr Rajab after his May 2014 release to discuss with him the circumstances of his previous detention and the human rights situation in Bahrain more generally. In 2013, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Mr. Rajab’s previous period of detention was arbitrary.

Ireland has always attached priority to safeguarding the position and rights of human rights defenders and has continually advocated that civil society actors must be free to operate in a safe and enabling environment, free from repression. Ireland’s concerns on such human rights issues in Bahrain have been conveyed regularly to the Bahraini authorities.

Ireland was one of 47 member states who delivered a joint statement expressing serious concern over the human rights situation in Bahrain at the 26th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in June of 2014. In the statement, the signatories expressed their concern regarding the protection of human rights in Bahrain and called on the government to expedite the implementation of the recommendations received from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in this regard.

At the 27th session of the Human Rights Council in September 2014, in a national statement, Ireland welcomed the positive steps taken by the authorities in Bahrain with respect to cooperation with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights while again expressing our serious concerns about the human rights situation, in particular condemning ‘the continuing arbitrary detention of human rights defenders, detained for peacefully exercising their human rights’. The situation faced by human rights defenders in Bahrain has also been raised with the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders.

Human rights defenders, whether in Bahrain or elsewhere, should not be detained for simply exercising their rights, and all those arbitrarily detained in such circumstances should be immediately released. As noted by the spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights last year, the detention of high profile human rights activists like Mr Rajab ‘sends a chilling message to other lesser-known activists of the consequences they may face for any criticism of the authorities’.

Ireland will continue to follow closely the human rights situation in Bahrain and to monitor the case of Nabeel Rajab in this context.