Bahrain court rejects lawyers’ request for alternative sentence for activist Rajab

A Bahraini court has rejected a motion filed by lawyers of prominent activist Nabeel Rajab asking it to pass an alternative sentence to the jail term he is currently serving, Reuters reports.

Rajab, an outspoken critic of the Bahraini government, played a prominent role in pro-democracy protests in 2011. The activist is serving a five-year sentence over social media posts criticizing Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes in Yemen.

“Our motion has been rejected,” his lawyer, Mohamed Al Jishi, said on Monday. He added the motion was filed on April 30 in a bid to benefit from an alternative punishment law which the kingdom introduced last year.