September 09, 2011
Press Statement:
The Bahrain Press Association condemns the attack on Reuters’s reporter & calls on the Bahraini authorities to stop assaulting media professionals
In light of yesterday’s quelling to a peaceful rally erupted in the village of A’ali, located to the south of Manama, in which Reuters’s reporter Hamad Mohamed Iqbal was shot by rubber bullets fired by security forces, the BPA condemns the incident and wishes to make the following press statement.
Despite peaceful protests taking place all over the Kingdom, the security forces are still using buckshots, rubber shots, teargas canisters to quell protesters.
September 09, 2011
Press Statement:
The Bahrain Press Association condemns the attack on Reuters’s reporter & calls on the Bahraini authorities to stop assaulting media professionals
In light of yesterday’s quelling to a peaceful rally erupted in the village of A’ali, located to the south of Manama, in which Reuters’s reporter Hamad Mohamed Iqbal was shot by rubber bullets fired by security forces, the BPA condemns the incident and wishes to make the following press statement.
Despite peaceful protests taking place all over the Kingdom, the security forces are still using buckshots, rubber shots, teargas canisters to quell protesters. Iqbal’s story unfolds as he was leaving one of the protests erupted in the village of A’ali when a riot police vehicle fired rubber shots right to Iqbal’s neck causing severe injuries. Iqbal was later moved to a local hospital for treatment, after his condition was stable, he was discharged.
The BPA calls on the official authorities in Bahrain to fulfill its responsibility in ensuring the safety of both local and non-local media professionals and that violations against such individuals are investigated and brought to justice. The BPA hereby calls for a hold of harassment to media professionals while performing their duties.
Hamad Iqbal’s incident comes as new testimony to what media professionals face in terms of assaults, on-going rights violations, and killings especially through arrests, interrogations, and torture by the Bahraini authorities. The list of which includes 120 Bahraini medial professionals with tens of foreign reports representing international multi-purposed media shops.
Additionally, what is worrisome about the press realm in Bahrain is that the security forces put much hindrance in the face of foreign media professionals depicting what is going on the island since last February by, among other things, denying them entry. For instance, reporter Michael Slackman of The New York Times and a fellow photographer Sean Patrick Farrell were both shot at from a helicopter hovering over Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout as they were filming a media coverage in the scene amid protests eruption.
Please visit the link below:
en.rsf.org/maghreb-et-moy..
Another incident was the unjustifiable and forceful deporting of CNN reporter Mohamed Jamjoom on March 16, 2011. Please visit the link below:
youtube.com/watch?v=AtRj0SaHkLU
National Security officials arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Alex Delmar-Morgan on March 16, 2011 as he was approaching the Pearl Roundabout in the Capital city of Manama. He was interrogated for three hours before being released. At the same day, the security forces attacked the crew of CBS radio network. Please visit these links:
youtube.com/watch?v=mwDghM-RZr4
www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_..
On March 30, the security forces also detained CNN’s reporter Amber Lyon and her accompanying team in front of the house of Nabeel Rajab, a human rights activist. They were detained and interrogated for six consecutive hours followed by an official warning to the Ms. Lyon not to film any events occurring in Bahrain without prior official permission. Please visit the following links: youtube.com/watch?v=w2j3DHu18HE
cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/04/11/bah..
The Bahraini authorities did not grant entry approval to foreign reports of international media shops such as The NY Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, France 24, CNN, Financial Times, The BBC, and the Wall Street Journal. Some reports were allowed to enter the island but on tough conditions with servillence by the security forces and two escorts from the regime-led Information Authority.
Some other foreign reports were exposed to brutal attacks through social networking websites by pro-regime cyber thugs. NY reporter Nicolas Kristof who was covering the protests of Bahrain. Mr. Kristof is still a target of the regime-led distortion.
The Bahraini authorities expelled the Irish journalist Finian Cunningham after years of living in Bahrain. This was affirmed by Reporters Without Borders that Mr. Cunningham was back home on June 19, 2011. Please visit the following link:
ifex.org/middle_east_north_africa/201..
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights issued a detailed report on the violations and assaults experienced by foreign reporters and journalists while performing their duties by Bahraini authorities since the protests broke out in the country in the month of February. Please visit the following link:
bahrainrights.org/ar/node/4375
Interim Management
Bahrain Press Association BPA