REPORTS AND PUBLICATIONS
8. BAHRAIN: SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST FREE EXPRESSION
REPORTS AND PUBLICATIONS
8. BAHRAIN: SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST FREE EXPRESSION
A large number of fake human rights and civil society organisations havesprung to life in Bahrain, when in reality they are fronts for greatergovernment control, says a new report by the Bahrain Centre for HumanRights (BCHR). These mock rights institutions are extensions of the Royal Court, the PrimeMinister’s Court or the Interior Ministry, among other branches of state,says BCHR. As far back as 2006, 100 legitimate human rights groups, as wellas political and professional figures, sent a letter to the King of Bahrainexpressing concern about this secret network. “One of the aims of this network is smearing the reputation of theindependent human rights defenders and opposition’s political activists,and creating fictitious and fake civil society institutions and attemptingto penetrate the independent ones,” says the report. In fact, BCHR explains, this scheme of false rights groups was a reactionto an acceleration of human rights violations being documented – sectariandiscrimination, torture, violations of freedom of expression, humantrafficking – and passed on to international rights groups. In parallel to this phenomenon, legitimate rights defenders have beenharassed and slandered, including through the use of the government media.Recently, Nabeel Rajab, President of BCHR, has been targeted in the mediaafter he was elected as a Board member of a regional network in Asia, theGulf and the Middle East. For more information, please see the full report:Presenting documents that reveal the “GONGOs” organisations in Bahrain:http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/2983
