Hawzah News Agency (Geneva, Switzerland) - “We are seriously concerned about the ongoing prosecution of Nabeel Rajab,” said Liz Throssell, the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, adding that criticizing the government “should not be the grounds for detention or prosecution.”

The 52-year-old activist, who chairs the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, was accused by Bahraini officials on Thursday of making comments that “harm the interests” of the Manama regime and other Persian Gulf kingdoms through an article attributed to him and published by Le Monde on Tuesday.

The article slammed the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group for their crimes against humanity and Persian Gulf Arab countries for their failure to stop the spread of the violent Wahhabi ideology.

Wahhabism, the radical ideology dominating Saudi Arabia and freely preached by its clerics, fuels the ideological engine of such terror organizations as Daesh and Fateh al-Sham, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch formerly known as al-Nusra Front. Takfiri terrorists use the ideology to declare people of other faiths “infidels,” justifying the killing of their victims.

Rajab, who was detained on June 13 for tweets that criticized Manama’s role in the deadly Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen, could face up to 15 years in jail. Throssell said in her statement that Rajab was arrested for “exercising his right to freedom of expression.”

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