Saudi-led coalition punishes critics over Yemeni issue

YemenExtra

Y.A

A Bahraini court rejected a motion filed by lawyers of prominent activist Nabeel Rajab asking it to pass an alternative to the jail term he is serving his lawyer said on Monday, reports Reuters.

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

“Our motion has been rejected,” his lawyer, Mohamed Al Jishi, said. 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.

In March 2015, the US -backed –Saudi-led coalition started  a war against Yemen with the declared aim of crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement, who had taken over from the staunch Riyadh ally and fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, while also seeking to secure the Saudi border with its southern neighbor. Three years and over 600,000 dead and injured Yemeni people and  prevented the patients from travelling abroad for treatment and blocked the entry of medicine into the war-torn country, the war has yielded little to that effect.

Despite the coalition claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

However, Saudi Arabia relies heavily on the US in its brutal war on Yemen. Washington has deployed a commando force on the Arab kingdom’s border with Yemen to help destroy arms belonging to Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement. Washington has also provided logistical support and aerial refueling.