RETWEET FOR FREEDOM

Freedom of speech is a right and a fundamental tool in the defense of human rights. Many governments continue to trample on this right. They use methods such as censuring, threats and even imprisonment to silence human rights defenders.

Just when social networks are becoming a platform for those who defend freedoms, many countries such as Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia deride human rights by incarcerating the defenders for the disgraceful reason that they used Twitter to denounce the abuses committed by their governments.

It's hard to believe, but a tweet of fewer than 140 letters can land a human rights defender in jail these days.

With its RETWEET FOR FREEDOM, FIDH hopes to obtain freedom for the forgotten defenders who are in prison for having tweeted. We need your help!

Sharing these tweets means:

1/ Fighting censorship

2/ Mobilising politicians so that a tweet can no longer lead to years in prison.

Support defenders, re-tweet these messages

Nabeel Rajab (Bahrain) - 15 years in prison if convicted

Nabeel Rajab

Bahrain authorities continue to harass human rights defenders. When will the international community act? #Bahrain

May 14, 2015

Retweet

Nabeel Rajab

From my prison cell, I call for justice and freedom for all political prisoners in Bahrain. #FreeBahrain

January 2, 2015

Retweet

Ever since 2011, Bahrain authorities have been relentlessly harassing Nabeel Rajab [President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), and the FIDH Deputy Secretary General]. On 14 May 2015, an appeal court confirmed Nabeel's sentence of a firm 6 months of prison for having "insulted public institutions and the army" on Twitter. He served half of his sentence before receiving a royal pardon. He began being harassed again on 13 June 2016 and is now behind bars. He risks spending 15 years there for other tweets promoting human rights.

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#RT4FREEDOM