3 November 2006
MANAMA – Bahrain has shut down an opposition group’s website days after censoring several Internet sites for discussing an alleged plot to maintain Sunni domination of the Gulf kingdom, a political activist said on Friday.
The information ministry blocked the website of the leftist National Democratic Action Association (NDAA) starting on Thursday, the group’s secretary general, Ibrahim Sherif, told AFP.
“We did not receive any notification from the ministry about the reason our website was blocked … We did not post anything on the website justifying its closure,” he said.
3 November 2006
MANAMA – Bahrain has shut down an opposition group’s website days after censoring several Internet sites for discussing an alleged plot to maintain Sunni domination of the Gulf kingdom, a political activist said on Friday.
The information ministry blocked the website of the leftist National Democratic Action Association (NDAA) starting on Thursday, the group’s secretary general, Ibrahim Sherif, told AFP.
“We did not receive any notification from the ministry about the reason our website was blocked … We did not post anything on the website justifying its closure,” he said.
Sherif said his group’s website had not carried any material related to the report by a purported British spy who claimed to have uncovered a plot to maintain Sunni domination of Bahrain.
Authorities earlier this week censored 17 Internet sites and blogs that debated the report, but the information ministry lifted the censorship of one of the blogs after its owner agreed to drop material related to the controversial report by Salah al-Bandar.
Bandar, who was expelled from Bahrain in September, said he had uncovered a secret organization operating within the Sunni-led government to “deprive an essential part of the population of this country of their rights” — a reference to Bahrain’s Shiite majority.
The information ministry said it had blocked the websites, mostly Bahraini, because they flouted a court ruling banning publication of any information or commentary on the matter. Bahraini newspaper editors have demanded a reversal of the ruling.
The clampdown on Internet sites comes in the runup to parliamentary and municipal elections scheduled for November 25.
Bahrain, which was shaken by a wave of Shiite unrest in the 1990s, revived its elected parliament in 2002, although the opposition continues to object to dividing legislative power equally between the elected chamber and an appointed consultative council.
