So I took the easy way out and since I was the top student back then, I choose to switch to Sheikh Abdul Aziz school.Rajab traveled to India to study Political Science and History.

[14][15] Rajab, then BCHR vice president, said: It is appalling that Bahrain is willing to rest on the benefits of these people's hard work, and often their suffering, but that they refuse to live with them in equality and dignity.

[18] Since December 2009, Nabeel has been a member of the Board of Advisors of the Middle East and North African division of Human Rights Watch, a position he still held in February 2012.

[22][23] The award citation praised him for having "worked tirelessly and at considerable personal peril to advance the cause of democratic freedoms and the civil rights of Bahraini citizens".

The award sponsored by Bindmans LLP aims to "recognise campaigners or activists who have fought repression, or have struggled to challenge political climates and perceptions.

[30] According to Front Line, Rajab has been the subject of ongoing harassment since 2005, including physical attacks and smear campaigns in the media (official TV, radio channels, Bahrain News Agency and newspapers close to government).

[36] According to an Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada report, on 15 July 2005, Nabeel and several others were beaten by Special Forces whilst attending a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with the Committee for the Unemployed.

[47][48] Beginning in February 2011, Bahrain saw sustained pro-democracy protests, centered at Pearl Roundabout in the capital of Manama, as part of the wider Arab Spring.

[49] Protests continued for a month reaching over 100,000 participants in a nation of about 500,000 citizens,[50][51][52] until more than a thousand troops and police from the Gulf Cooperation Council arrived at the request of government and a three-month state of emergency was declared.

[54][55] However, smaller-scale protests and clashes continued to occur almost daily, mostly in areas outside Manama's business districts, with some rare marches in the center of the capital city.

[72] In the early hours of 20 March 2011, a group of 20 to 25 masked men, some armed with rifles and accompanied by dozens of uniformed Bahraini security forces, broke into Rajab's house.

[76] The photos showed slash marks all over Saqer's back and other signs of physical abuse, and were also stated to be accurate by an HRW researcher who had seen the body prior to burial.

In the first incident, HRW identified the grenades thrown into the Rajab family's compound as US-manufactured munitions to which only Bahrain's security forces would have had access.

[89] On 31 May, just after the King of Bahrain had called for dialogue without preconditions to begin in early July[90] the military National Safety Court issued an order for Rajab's arrest along with those of prominent Al Wefaq parliamentarians.

[99] On 6 January 2012, after leading a night peaceful[27] protest in Fareeq el-Makharqa in Manama, Rajab was hospitalized and briefly detained[100] with injuries from an alleged beating, which the opposition blamed on security forces.

[104] Following the media attention on protests during the Formula 1 race in April 2012, the government launched a "legal crackdown"[105] in which Rajab was arrested and released several times.

[108] Before the arrest, Rajab had stated he would not attend the trial, because the Judiciary of Bahrain was "a tool used against human rights defenders and people calling for democracy and justice".

[117] The Australian Senate unanimously passed a ruling demanding their government to "[m]ake direct representations to Bahraini authorities for the immediate release of Nabeel Rajab.

"[citation needed] Public prosecutors stated that Rajab's "provocation of his supporters" had incited violence, including the road blockades and petrol bomb attacks.

[145] She said that action had been taken against him because although claiming to be a human rights activist he had in fact been engaging in political activity,[146][147] a justification similar to that offered by an officially-appointed MP for the trial of Bahrain health workers.

[citation needed] Mr. Jishi, Rajab's lawyer, said the government was "sending a message", further emphasised by the King of Bahrain's speech that week referring to a duty to "protect peaceful, good-natured citizens who do not seek to usurp power".

[153] A number of political and human rights activists held a sit-in in solidarity with Rajab at National Democratic Action Society headquarters on 18 August.

[162] A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office expressed concern at the length of the sentence and called on opposition activists to avoid inciting "violence or other illegal acts".

[4] Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa commented that "The appeal court's gesture to reduce Nabeel Rajab's sentence by one year is completely hollow given that he shouldn't be serving any time in prison in the first place".

[184] On 10 July, King Hamad issued a royal decree granting Rajab, who was sentenced to six months, a special pardon, Bahrain News Agency reported.

[186] On 10 July, he was sentenced to two years in jail by a Bahraini court after finding him guilty of "disseminating false news, statements and rumours about the internal situation of the kingdom that would undermine its prestige and status", according to a judicial source.

[187] On 21 February 2018, Rajab was sentenced by the High Criminal Court of Bahrain to a further five years in jail for tweets and documentation of human rights violations.

The second charge of "spreading rumors during wartime" related to his reporting on civilian deaths in Yemen, in contravention of a government prohibition of any public mention that is critical of the conflict.

On 26 July 2011, in an interview with Al Jazeera English, he expressed disappointment at US silence and the inconsistent way in which US standards of democracy and human rights were applied to countries which they had problems but not to dictatorships with whom they had good relations.

[195] Even though on this occasion Rajab was personally congratulated by the Minister,[195] his use of Twitter to publicise human rights abuses has brought him into repeated conflict with the authorities.