Confiscating the Teams’ Cameras and Threatening them with Legal Measures
17 January 2011
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its concern for the Bahraini Authorities continuance in repressing the representatives and correspondents of foreign newspapers, radio stations and TV channels, as well as world news agencies in an attempt to block the news of what is taking place inside Bahrain from the outside world, which was lately represented in attempting to prevent a team from the BBC Radio and TV Corporation from recording and filming radio broadcasts and TV documentaries about Bahrain.
Confiscating the Teams’ Cameras and Threatening them with Legal Measures
17 January 2011
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights expresses its concern for the Bahraini Authorities continuance in repressing the representatives and correspondents of foreign newspapers, radio stations and TV channels, as well as world news agencies in an attempt to block the news of what is taking place inside Bahrain from the outside world, which was lately represented in attempting to prevent a team from the BBC Radio and TV Corporation from recording and filming radio broadcasts and TV documentaries about Bahrain.
Since the moment of the correspondents’ arrival at Bahrain’s International Airport on November 24th, 2010, they were taken aback by having their cameras confiscated in the airport’s customs and the refusal to return them back despite their repetitive attempts to convince the officials in the airport that they had informed the embassy of their intention to visit Bahrain and that they had not shown any sign of objection.
On November 25th, which coincides with the day of the third session of trialing what is known as the ‘organizational network’, they were prohibited from entering the courtroom despite the government’s declaration that the trial is public. The Department of Foreign Media attempted to drive them away from the court’s surrounding by inviting them to a meeting at the same time of the trial; however, they refused and decided to stay outside the court’s building to detect what is happening, where the families of activists and human rights defenders had gathered. Even while they were recording filmed interviews with the families of detainees who had spread out on the ground outside the court, by the temporary equipment which they had borrowed, the security men intervened to prevent and force them to stop running these interviews, and they tried hard to confiscate the tapes that were recorded with their equipment; however, they refused to obey their orders.
During the week of their presence in Bahrain, the two journalists were subjected to severe and intense security control and pursuit, since the moment of their arrival at Bahrain’s airport and until the hour of their departure; they were even tracked inside the restaurants, coffee shops and shopping malls they were in, whether they were there to dine or purchase things.
On November 29th, the two journalists were summoned by Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa (a member of the ruling family), head of the Department of Foreign Media at the Corporation of Information Affairs, and former vice-president of the National Security Apparatus to ask them to stop filming or making interviews, implying that their persistence to record has its legal consequences which they must bear. The Bahraini Authorities monopolize the TV broadcast and do not authorize any private or independent political channels. Last September, the BBC had broadcasted a short documentary[1] about the political situation in Bahrain and the tyrannical attack that led to the arrest of hundreds of activists and human rights defenders, among them the activist Jaffar Al-Hisabi who holds a British and Bahraini nationality.
The BCHR believes that these harassments and bans are another attempt by the Authority to deny the access of correct information and news of what is taking place of daily violations of human rights in Bahrain to the outside world, at a time when all the local media bodies are banned from discussing the news of the current trial of the alleged network.
The Department of Foreign Media which is in charge of the ban is only superficially affiliated with the Corporation of Information Affairs, while in reality it overlaps and is associated with the National Security Apparatus (Intelligence) as far as the tasks assigned to it are concerned. The Department is headed by Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, who was the former vice-president of the National Security Apparatus. This Department has been exerting a lot of pressure in the last years on the correspondents of foreign newspapers and news agencies, and it refrained from issuing permits to some of them, and it tried to impose some correspondents that are closely allied with it on some of the foreign channels and world news agencies. It has become difficult for any correspondent to keep his or her job without the Authority being satisfied with him or her. Last February, it froze the permit of correspondents from the French and German news agencies[2] . In May it also froze the activities of Al-Jazeera News Channel in Bahrain, and banned its correspondents from entering the country[3].
According to international indicators of the condition of freedom of opinion and expression released by some of the international organizations concerned with monitoring freedom of press, Bahrain’s rank in the indicators of freedom of opinion and expression declined until it became categorized by the Freedom House org. as one of the non-free countries. Bahrain’s rank also deteriorated in the indicator of freedom of press of Reporters without Borders org. to reach number 144 among 178 countries included in the 2010 indicator, after it was ranked number 63 worldwide in 2003.
These restricting approaches of the government of Bahrain is inconsistent with its position as a member in the Council of Human Rights and a party in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights where its ‘19th’ Article states, “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”.
Based on all the above, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights demands the Bahraini Authorities the following:-
Allow the journalists, correspondents and media workers to exercise their activities in absolute freedom without obstructing or restricting them.
Separate the affairs of information from the security apparatuses and permit the foreign newspapers and news agencies to cover the news freely.
Meet its commitments to the International Charters and Covenants which it has endorsed as far as freedom of press and freedom of opinion and expression are concerned.
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[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db3Z3bFIaQ0
[2]ifex.org
[3]ifex.org