Human rights groups in Bahrain have urged the country’s allies in the EU and the UK to “speak out before it’s too late”, after the prominent activist Nabeel Rajab was released on bail following several months of pre-trial detainment only to be reimprisoned hours afterwards.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “Bahrain plays with [Rajab’s] life despite his deteriorating health condition and UN calls for his unconditional release. The latest judicial harassment exposes Bahrain’s mockery of justice. Bahrain’s allies in the EU & UK must speak out before it’s too late.”



Rajab was to be released on bail on Wednesday until prosecutors made a sudden reversal and ordered him back into custody over other investigations.



Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and a leading figure in the country’s 2011 Arab spring protests, faces up to 15 years in jail for comments made on Twitter criticising the war in Yemen, as well as making allegations of torture by authorities at a local prison.

The 52-year-old is also accused of “defaming the state” by publishing “false news … and malicious rumours that undermine the prestige of the kingdom” in an opinion piece in the New York Times, in which he wrote that “no one has been properly held to account for systematic abuses that have affected thousands” in the Shia-majority nation of Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni monarchy.

Another ongoing investigation by authorities focuses on a letter recently published by the French newspaper Le Monde.

Rajab’s defence lawyer, Jalila Sayed, originally told the Associated Press that the activist was released after a long court hearing on Wednesday, and that he was due to appear again in court on 23 January to continue a trial which has been criticised by the United Nations and others as an attempt to suppress free speech.

The reversal by the authorities and re-imprisonment has stunned Rajab’s supporters. “Nabeel is overall weak because of so many health problems he started facing, including heart problems and other physical issues,” Sayed had said. “He’s under tremendous stress because of this length of detention.”

The lawyer said she believed the court granted bail because a witness for the prosecution could not specifically prove that Rajab had control of the Twitter account in his name or show he had sent the tweets in question. “We hope this will end with an acquittal because the case has no evidence,” she continued.

The accusations against Rajab and his detention – most of which has been in solitary confinement – have been roundly criticised by human rights groups. Amnesty International called the charges a “barefaced assault on freedom of expression”, and Human Rights Watch’s executive director, Ken Roth, named Rajab as one of two imprisoned activists he thought most resembled “the next Nelson Mandela”.

Earlier this month, more than 20 MPs from seven parties in the UK parliament – including the Conservatives, Labour, the Scottish National party, the Democratic Unionist party, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the Social Democratic and Labour party – urged the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, to echo US government calls for Rajab’s release.

In September, Mark Toner, the US state department spokesman, said the American government had called for the immediate release of Rajab. “We have concerns about the state of human rights in general in Bahrain and we’re engaging with the government … on all these issues,” Toner said.

During Theresa May’s visit to Bahrain in December, her spokeswoman would not say if any specific cases had been raised in bilateral talks, but said the UK did raise human rights cases as part of a wider engagement on Gulf reforms. But rights campaigners in Bahrain have argued that although the UK has been engaging closely with Bahraini authorities on judicial and police reform since 2012, this has not prevented crackdowns on journalists and pro-democracy activists.

“We have seen how Theresa May lashed Boris Johnson over his comments on Saudi [Arabia]. Nabeel Rajab criticised Saudi Arabia and Bahrain over their bombardment in Yemen and is facing prison for it,” Alwadaei said recently. “If May or her government fail to publicly call for his release, Bahrain will take it as a green light for their repression.”

Since the 2011 demonstrations, Bahrain has faced low-level unrest, protests and attacks on police. As a result, several prominent opposition figures and human rights activists have been imprisoned or stripped of their citizenship and deported.

In a speech in June, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said at least 250 people had lost their citizenship in Bahrain in recent years “because of their alleged disloyalty to the interests of the kingdom”. “Repression will not eliminate people’s grievances, it will increase them,” he added.

Bahrain’s foreign minister, Khalid Al Khalifa, responded on Twitter: “We will not allow the undermining of our security and stability and will not waste our time listening to the words of a high commissioner who is powerless.”

