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Nabeel Rajab (Bahraini human-rights defender; president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights) — from his op-ed "Letter From a Bahraini Jail," The New York Times, 4 Sep 2016 (confirmed via Salon/TIME; NYT original paywalled): Bahrain jails those "daring to desire democracy," "no one has been properly held to account" for systematic abuses, and a challenge to the US over an ally that "punishes its people for thinking."
English 
Bahrain 2016-09-04 Tier 2 — primary or translation
Politician: Nabeel Rajab
Original source: https://www.salon.com/2016/09/06/political-prisoner-hit-with-another-kafkaesque-charge-for-writing-nyt-piece-about-harsh-repression-by-u-s-ally-bahrain/
Content
This is a country that has subjected its people to imprisonment, torture and even death for daring to desire democracy.
No one has been properly held to account for systematic abuses that have affected thousands.
Is this the kind of ally America wants? The kind that punishes its people for thinking, that prevents its citizens from exercising their basic rights? English translation
[These are verbatim passages from Nabeel Rajab's own op-ed "Letter From a Bahraini Jail," The New York Times, 4 September 2016 (English). The NYT original is paywalled (HTTP 403); the quotes are confirmed verbatim against Salon's reporting (cited as source_url) and TIME — both reputable outlets. The opening "This is a country…" is confirmed in TIME (time.com/4481456); Salon renders the same sentence from "is a country…" and carries the other two passages.] Declared positions of Nabeel Rajab — Bahrain's most prominent human-rights defender, co-founder and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a leading figure of the 2011 pro-democracy uprising, repeatedly imprisoned (and ultimately sentenced to years in jail) for tweets and writing that criticized the government. Writing from prison, he indicted Bahrain's repression of those "daring to desire democracy," the IMPUNITY for "systematic abuses that have affected thousands," and challenged the United States — Bahrain's close ally and host of the U.S. Fifth Fleet — over backing a government that "punishes its people for thinking" and denies basic rights; his jailed tweets had also condemned torture in Jaw prison and the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen. This is the BAHRAINI / GULF CIVIL-LIBERTIES and pro-DEMOCRACY pole — free expression and accountability against monarchical repression, and an implicit critique of Western governments' tolerance of allied autocracies. It pairs with Maryam al-Khawaja and Ali Salman (the Bahraini opposition) already in the dataset. [Axes: civil-liberties (free expression; against imprisonment for speech; anti-torture), democracy (the 2011 uprising; popular sovereignty vs monarchy), west-alignment (challenging the US–Bahrain alliance; criticism of the Yemen war), regime-stance (against the Al Khalifa government's repression).]
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In-text
(Rajab, 2016) Rajab, N.. (2016). Nabeel Rajab (Bahraini human-rights defender; president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights) — from his op-ed "Letter From a Bahraini Jail," The New York Times, 4 Sep 2016 (confirmed via Salon/TIME; NYT original paywalled): Bahrain jails those "daring to desire democracy," "no one has been properly held to account" for systematic abuses, and a challenge to the US over an ally that "punishes its people for thinking.". salon.com. Retrieved July 28, 2026, from https://www.salon.com/2016/09/06/political-prisoner-hit-with-another-kafkaesque-charge-for-writing-nyt-piece-about-harsh-repression-by-u-s-ally-bahrain/
Rajab, Nabeel. 2016. "Nabeel Rajab (Bahraini human-rights defender; president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights) — from his op-ed "Letter From a Bahraini Jail," The New York Times, 4 Sep 2016 (confirmed via Salon/TIME; NYT original paywalled): Bahrain jails those "daring to desire democracy," "no one has been properly held to account" for systematic abuses, and a challenge to the US over an ally that "punishes its people for thinking."." salon.com. Accessed July 28, 2026. https://www.salon.com/2016/09/06/political-prisoner-hit-with-another-kafkaesque-charge-for-writing-nyt-piece-about-harsh-repression-by-u-s-ally-bahrain/.
@misc{doc-document-36d4527c-bc45-4e70-a475-394a30eabb31,
author = {Rajab, Nabeel},
title = {Nabeel Rajab (Bahraini human-rights defender; president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights) — from his op-ed "Letter From a Bahraini Jail," The New York Times, 4 Sep 2016 (confirmed via Salon/TIME; NYT original paywalled): Bahrain jails those "daring to desire democracy," "no one has been properly held to account" for systematic abuses, and a challenge to the US over an ally that "punishes its people for thinking."},
year = {2016},
date = {2016-09-04},
howpublished = {Online; hosted at salon.com},
url = {https://www.salon.com/2016/09/06/political-prisoner-hit-with-another-kafkaesque-charge-for-writing-nyt-piece-about-harsh-repression-by-u-s-ally-bahrain/},
urldate = {2026-07-28},
note = {Retrieved via Tayyar at https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/36d4527c-bc45-4e70-a475-394a30eabb31},
} Retrieved via Tayyar: https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/36d4527c-bc45-4e70-a475-394a30eabb31 on July 28, 2026. Tayyar is a research host for primary sources, not the author of this document.