A Bahraini court has postponed the trial of prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab until September.

A Bahraini court has postponed the trial of prominent human rights activist Nabeel Rajab until September.

Al-Wasat daily reported that the trial of Rajab, the head of Bahrain Center for Human Rigjhts, was delayed until September 5.

Manamapost.com quoted unnamed judicial source as saying that a request by Rajab’s defense team to free the activist because of his health situation was rejected on Tuesday. However, a doctor will check up on the 51-year-old Bahraini campaigner in jail, the source added.

Rajab, who has been repeatedly detained for organizing pro-democracy demonstrations and publishing posts critical of the ruling dynasty, was pardoned for health reasons last year, but he was rearrested in June.

He was briefly hospitalized over health problems a few days after his detention, but the court ordered that he remain in custody throughout the trial.

Rajab will be tried over tweets he posted in March 2015 criticizing Manama’s involvement in the deadly Saudi aggression against Yemen and torture at Bahrain’s notorious Jaw Prison.

The activist faces charges of "insulting a statutory body, insulting a neighboring country and disseminating false rumors in time of war.”

Rajab faces up to 12 years imprisonment over his critical tweets, according to Human Rights Watch, an international rights organization.  

Bahrain, a close ally of the US in the Persian Gulf region, has seen a wave of anti-regime protests since mid-February 2011.

The Al Khalifah regime is engaged in a harsh crackdown on dissent and widespread discrimination against the country's Shia majority.

Scores of people have been killed and hundreds of others wounded or detained in Manama’s ongoing repression of free speech.