4th November 2012

BAHRAIN MEDIA ROUNDUP

Bahrain extends detention of rights activist held over march
Bahrain has extended the detention of a leading human rights activist arrested last week for taking part in a demonstration in the Gulf Arab state by seven days, his lawyer said on Sunday. Lawyer Mohammed al-Jishi said Sayed Yousif AlMuhafda, a leading gure at the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was being investigated on charges of illegally gathering and taking part in an unauthorised march last Friday, the day of his arrest. The Interior Ministry issued no statement about the case. Jishi said Friday's protest took place in Diraz, a Shi'ite Muslim district west of Manama. Muhafda says he went there to follow up on reports of injuries after clashes, Jishi said. Read More But that now could be put to the test as Gulf states attempt to muzzle voice of opposition by adopt sweeping measures, such as protest bans and clampdowns on social media. "The Western governments have taken essentially 'do what it takes' policies with the Gulf regimes," said Christopher Davidson, an expert on Gulf affairs at Britain's Durham University. "That requires a certain level of silence and a practice of looking the other way from the West." Read More

Backing up rhetoric with action in Bahrain

Our challenge in a country like Bahrain, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last November, is that the United States has many complex interests. Well always have to walk and chew gum at the same time. The growing problem is that the United States does plenty of walking maintaining our strategic alliance with the Gulf kingdom in the short term but little or no chewing, or taking meaningful steps to spur the

political reforms needed to preserve Bahrain as an ally in the long term. A late September vote on Bahrains nominee for the advisory committee of the U.N. Human Rights Council gave Washington an easy opening. In a letter to Clinton early that month, 14 nongovernmental organizations, including the Project on Middle East Democracy, Human Rights Watch and Freedom House, urged the United States to oppose the candidacy in light of Bahrains egregious record on human rights. Read More Cameron should be making clear how appalled he is at this repression: what kind of country would imprison people for what they post on Twitter? Ahh. Therein lines the problem. After last years riots, police threatened toarrest users for inciting the looters. It seemed daft: would you really arrest people for writing posts, mostly moronic, on Twitter? Nowadays we regularly hear stories about members of the public being arrested for posting their ramblings on the site. Read More

Gulf squeeze on dissent raises alarm with allies

The Gulf has been the slow burn of the Arab uprisings. The fraternity of rulers in the oil-rich region has remained intact with tactics ranging from withering force in Bahrain to arrests of perceived dissenters in the United Arab Emirates. And it's been done without too much serious blowback from their Western allies, which count on the region's reliability as an energy supplier and military partner against Iran.

What kind of regime imprisons people for what they tweet? Oh, hang on
The King of Bahrain certainlydoesnt seem to like it up him.In this weeks Spectator,Kirsty Walker said her last complaint before quitting journalism was from the King objecting to her being rude about his regime. A Bahrainiman has just beensentenced to six months in jailfor defaming the king on Twitter. Three similar Twitter users are up on similar charges next week. David

Bahrain denies calling in British spin doctors to polish tarnished image

Bahrain has denied a press report claiming that its government and opposition gures are being trained in negotiation and conict resolution techniques by a British non-government organisation(NGO). The report published by the Guardian about a private organisation providing the government and the opposition with advice on negotiation,

conict resolution and the application of lessons drawn from other places in a Middle Eastern context is baseless, Sameera Rajab, the state minister for information affairs, said. The report in the British newspaper said that the training was provided by Jonathan Powell, who was chief of staff under former British prime minister Tony Blair, and InterMediate, a small NGO actively providing conict resolution services in several parts of the world. Read More

Bahrain detains prominent human rights activist

Bahraini ofcials have ordered the arrest of a prominent human rights activist on charges of participations in a demonstration against the ruling Al Khalifa regime.

Yousef al-Mahafdha, a member of the board of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, was detained late on Friday in the village of Darraz, where a protest took place, AFP reported. Mahafdha said on social network Twitter that he had gone into Darraz "at the end of the protest" and saw people carrying away an injured person. Read More