February 15, 2011
Analysis
From Sudan to Bahrain, authorities have used harassment, threats, and restrictions on movements to limit independent coverage on sensitive issues. The effect has been to conceal controversial activities and flawed policies, suppress political opposition, and settle scores with critics.
February 15, 2011
Analysis
From Sudan to Bahrain, authorities have used harassment, threats, and restrictions on movements to limit independent coverage on sensitive issues. The effect has been to conceal controversial activities and flawed policies, suppress political opposition, and settle scores with critics.
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Governments also exploit national security grounds to settle scores with critics and political opponents. In Iran since June 2009 and in Bahrain in the closing months of 2010, such grounds were used to eliminate coverage of the political opposition.
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In Bahrain, authorities said they were dismantling “a terrorist network” when they arrested hundreds of people beginning in August and continuing through parliamentary elections in October. Those detained included political activists, human rights defenders, and at least two journalistic bloggers who had been critical of government policies that marginalize the country’s Shiite majority.
Independent scrutiny of the crackdown was made nearly impossible by the government’s next action. Public Prosecutor Ali al-Buainain issued a gag order barring news media from reporting on the detentions. A defense lawyer noted one exception: The press could publish government statements on the case. The detainees, including bloggers Ali Abdel Imam and Abduljalil Alsingace, were charged with numerous crimes, including “inciting terrorist acts” and trying to “overthrow and change the political system of the country.”
“Because of the publishing ban on this case, I can’t even comment publicly,” said a Bahraini journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Otherwise I’ll be sucked into this vortex as well.”
Country Summary
In May, the Ministry of Culture and Information ordered the Bahrain bureau of satellite news channel Al-Jazeera to halt operations “for having violated professional norms and for failing to observe laws and procedures regulating journalism, printing and publishing,” according to the official Bahrain News Agency. The decision came a day after Al-Jazeera aired a program about poverty in Bahrain. The day the ban was announced, authorities denied entry to an Al-Jazeera crew that had traveled to Bahrain to interview a former U.N. official about poverty in the country, according to news reports. The ban on bureau operations remained in effect in late year.
On August 27, Public Prosecutor Ali al-Buainain banned journalists from reporting on the detentions of dozens of opposition activists in a series of arrests that month. Among those detained were at least two bloggers: Abduljalil Alsingace, who had tracked human rights issues for the opposition Haq Movement of Civil Liberties and Democracy, and Ali Abdel Imam, the founder of the news website BahrainOnline. Both were standing trial in late year on charges of forming an illegal organization, engaging in terrorism, and spreading false information. They remained in custody along with numerous opposition activists.
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