It has been reported that prominent human rights lawyer Abdullah Al-Shamlawi from Bahrain has been sentenced to eight months in prison over two tweets on 30 June 2020. The sentence has been suspended upon payment of 200 BD (USD$530) bail.
Al-Shamlawi is a legal consultant and an experienced lawyer who has practiced law for more than 40 years. He has defended prisoners of conscience with courage and persistence. He uses his Twitter account to express his personal opinions on various issues of concern to citizens.
In the first case, Al-Shamlawi was sentenced to six months in prison in relation to a tweet he published in 2020. He gave in this tweet his personal opinion on fasting, even though he then deleted the tweet and apologized to everyone who did not accept his point of view. Further, he was sentenced to two months in prison over his comment on a tweet published by Al-Ayam newspaper in 2018. Al-Ayam quickly deleted the tweet, but Al-Shamlawi was still charged in the case.
Khalid Ibrahim, Executive Director of Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), said: “The authorities in Bahrain should honour prominent lawyer Abdullah Al-Shamlawi for his long and sincere work in defending the human and civil rights of citizens rather than targeting him in violation of his freedom of expression.” The GCHR calls on the government of Bahrain to immediately and unconditionally overturn the verdict against human rights lawyer Abdullah Al-Shamlawi and to stop targeting him.
