23rd April 2013

BAHRAIN MEDIA ROUNDUP

Bahrain blocks visit of UN torture rapporteur
The Bahraini government has postponed indenitely a visit by Juan Mendez the UN special rapporteur on torture. According to the country's ofcial news agency the trip has been called off "until further notice". This comes just days after the release of a US State Department report on human rights in Bahrain which spoke of "signicant" violations including torture in detention. The Gulf kingdom has been wracked by civil unrest for two years. The violence has left at least 50 people dead. Read More

Bahrain says thwarted attacks, found petrol bombs before F1 race

Bahrain security forces thwarted attacks and found caches of weapons including 1,000 petrol bombs in the run-up to last weekend's Formula One race, state media said as protests and sectarian tensions continued to simmer in the island kingdom.

Bahrain did not see a repeat of the mass demonstrations that overshadowed last year's race - though young men armed with rocks did clash with police in outlying villages, as they have done regularly since unrest erupted in early 2011. Protests in the Gulf Arab country, a Western ally that hosts the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, broke out two years ago, with the Shi'ite-led opposition drawing thousands of demonstrators demanding democratic reforms from the Sunni-led government. Read More Rihanna al-Musawi (ages unknown), and claims they will be detained for 60 days on charges of trying to "bomb the Sakhir circuit" in the run-up to the race. State news agency BNA quoted police as saying they arrested "two girls who were trying to carry out a terrorist act at Bahrain's international circuit in the south, as the kingdom was hosting the Formula One race". Read More

Bahrain police arrest 2 'girls' over bid to attack F1

Two Bahraini girls were arrested for allegedly having plotted to carry out an attack on Sakhir circuit during the weekend's Formula One Grand Prix race, police said on Tuesday. Authorities arrested "two girls who were trying to

carry out a terrorist act at Bahrain's international circuit in the south, as the kingdom was hosting the Formula One race," state news agency BNA quoted police as saying. The pair were arrested on Saturday, the second day of practice sessions, at one of the entrances to the Sakhir circuit, south of Manama, said public security chief General Tariq Hassan. Read More

Bahrain: Two Girls Arrested for 'Terror Plot' on Formula 1 Race

Bahraini authorities have arrested two girls for allegedly planning to attack the Sakhir race circuit during the controversial Formula 1 grand prix which took place last weekend. AFP has named the two girls as Nasa al-Asfur and

two years, prompting a fresh wave of protests. During that time, the U.S. and Saudi-backed monarchy there has limited media access, exacerbating the minimal media coverage the uprising in the Gulf monarchy has received. I was able to get into Bahrain recently and interviewed Said Yousif alMuhafda of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. Read More

Exclusive from Bahrain: Interview with Human Rights Activist on Repression Against Formula One Race Protest
Formula One Grand Prix just went ahead in Bahrain despite human rights objections over holding such an event in a country gripped by an uprising for

Bahrain Soccer Chief Faces Tough Questions in AFC Election

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), struggling to restore credibility after two scandalriddled years involving allegations of nancial mismanagement and corruption, has had a foretaste of questions and issues that are likely to be raised if Bahrain Football Association head Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al

Khalifa , widely viewed as a frontrunner, wins the group's May 2 presidential election. Sheikh Salman is one of four candidates running to replace Mohammed Bin Hammam, the disgraced and banned former president of the governing Asian soccer. Sheikh Salman lost to Mr. Bin Hammam four years ago in a bitter election campaign and is the only current candidate who is not associated with the Qatari national. Read More

Bahrain: medics acquitted of subversion to be reinstated

Bahrain's health ministry is reinstating doctors acquitted by the country's courts of charges stemming from their alleged roles in February-March 2011 unrest, Health Minister Sadiq al-Shihabi made known on Tuesday.

About twenty medics from Salmaniya Medical Complex in the capital, Manama, were arrested and tried for alleged subversive activity, including hiding weapons in the hospital, during the Bahraini Arab Spring. The Sunni dynasty's military repression of that uprising by the kingdom's downtrodden Shiite majority left 40 people dead, including several police ofcers. Read More

Foreign Ministry/ Statement

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today issued the following statement: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain expresses its dissatisfaction with the

report issued by the U.S. State Department on Friday, April 19, 2013 on human rights in Bahrain. The report lacks objectivity and impartiality, and overlooks Bahrains progress in maintaining and promoting human rights issues, especially in the context of the historical and multifaceted relations that combine the two countries. Read More

Bahrain reinstates sacked doctors

Bahrains health ministry is reinstating the doctors acquitted by the countrys courts, the minister has said. In implementation of the court ruling, I have instructed the human and nancial resources

department to contact the doctors who were acquitted by the court and launch procedures to reinstate them, Sadiq Al Shihabi said. The list of the medics to be reinstated includes all doctors who were acquitted by the court. The court ruling is the legal basis for the reinstatement decision. Read More