Bahrain shut down a prominent independent newspaper Sunday “until further notice” over an article about unrest in Morocco, the latest move tightening expression in the Gulf nation as authorities wage a crackdown on dissent.
The sudden closure of the daily Al-Wasat marks the third time authorities have ordered it to stop publishing a print edition since the island’s 2011 Arab Spring protests and comes just after officials briefly banned it in January from publishing online.
Bahrain’s Information Affairs Authority issued the order first verbally Sunday and later through a statement published by the state-run Bahrain News Agency, said Mansoor al-Jamri, the paper’s editor-in-chief. The statement said the closure came over a story “affecting the relations of the kingdom of Bahrain with other countries.”
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