Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:38PM
Bahrain’s human rights watchdog has expressed concern and dismay over the Western media blockade on Manama’s suppression of the country’s Shia opposition.
Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:38PM
Bahrain’s human rights watchdog has expressed concern and dismay over the Western media blockade on Manama’s suppression of the country’s Shia opposition.
In a letter sent to The Independent daily, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights expressed great concerns over the paper’s omission of the current sever crackdown on the basic human rights by Bahrain’s government against its own citizens.
The letter came in reaction to an article titled “Bridging the Gulf: Bahrain’s big experiment with democracy” by Joan Smith published in the newspaper on September 12, 2010.
The article in question did not make any reference to an arrest campaign which started on in Bahrain August 13 and which targets political activists, religious figures and human rights defenders, the rights center said in an email to Press TV.
It also failed to address more than 250 detainees who are held in incommunicado detention, denied access to lawyers and families, and reportedly suffering from constant torture, ill-treatment and sexual abuses, it complained.
Manama has also gagged local press and blocked websites including that of the country’s largest political society al-Wefaq. Bloggers have been arrested including Bahrain’s most celebrated blogger and online journalist Ali Abdulemam.
The UK paper’s blind eye to the Bahraini opposition’s plight comes while major international human rights organizations such as the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Federation for Human Rights and Frontline Defenders have reported and documented the crackdown and urged Manama to immediately halt the violations of human rights.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights in its letter demanded The Independent to “update its article with the full context in order not to obscure those facts from its readers and also to maintain its newspapers journalistic integrity.”
“This information is vital for readers to form an opinion on Bahrain’s current conditions and will re-establish balance in the story.”
MRS/HGH/MMN
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/142875.html