Bahrain Mirror: Director of the international affairs division of the Thai attorney general's office told reporters that Bahrain no longer wanted to take legal action against Araibi, so his office dropped the case, the Washington Post newspaper reported on Monday (February 11, 2019).

However, Bahrain's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that a 10-year jail sentence imposed on Al-Araibi in absentia by a Bahraini court remained in place and reaffirmed its right to "pursue all necessary legal actions against him".

Al-Araibi was released after spending more than 70 days in Thailand where he was arrested upon his arrival to spend a vacation with his wife.

Thailand has been under sustained pressure to release Araibi, a campaign that intensified after the dramatic and widely publicized case of Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed Al-Qunun. 

Bahrain continues to face fierce criticism from human rights organizations. Human Rights Watch's director of global initiatives, Minky Worden, wrote Saturday that the Bahraini request to extradite Araibi represented "naked political persecution."

Rights groups said the case is part of a broader crackdown on dissidents. 

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