In Brief: 8th-14th May 2013

BAHRAIN MEDIA ROUNDUP

Thousands in Bahrain protest against 'torture': reports
Thousands of partisans of Bahrain's opposition demonstrated near Manama on Friday to protest against the alleged torture of jailed regime opponents, witnesses said. Gathered around the Shiite village of Daih, men and women waved Bahrain's national ag and held up signs that read: "Manama, capital of torture," the witnesses said. "Torture is a practice rooted in the security agencies," in Bahrain, the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq said in a statement. It charged that a tug-of-war is underway in Sunni-ruled Bahrain between "a political majority demanding a democratic transition and a hard core dictatorship that refuses any change." Read More One article, written by a representative of the progovernment group, Citizens for Bahrain, praised King Hamad for bringing true freedom of the press to Bahrain, while warning that people do not understand the responsibility that comes with this freedom. The other, written by Anwar Abdulrahman, the editor of the pro-government newspaper Akhbar AlKhaleej, claimed that socalled human rights organisations are largely administered by exideologists and even terrorists. Read More calling for a judicial review of the UKs failure to hold rms accountable for sales of spy software to repressive regimes. The evidence submitted contains a witness statement from Bahraini activist and writer Ala'a Shehabi, 30. Read More

Capital of torture: Bahraini Shiite majority demands democratic rule

Thousands of antigovernment activists ocked to the streets of the Shiite village of Daih in Bahrain to protest against the torture of victims arrested by the minority Sunni-ruled monarchy.

The frustrated mob held up signs that read: Manama, capital of torture, and waved the national ag. Torture is a practice rooted in the security agencies, in Bahrain, the main Shiite opposition bloc Al-Wefaq said in a statement. It added that these practice were embedded in the security doctrine - corrupt and hostile to the citizens. Read More

Prince Charles criticised over Bahrain housing deal

Prince Charles has been accused of lending credibility to an autocratic regime accused of serious human rights abuses after his architecture charity signed a deal to advise Bahrain on a 4,000-home development.

Bahrain's rights, Britain's failure

An incident on this year's World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, raises serious questions about the British governments policy towards Bahrain. The British embassy in Manama marked the occasion by posting on its website two articles that argued against freedom of expression, denigrated Bahraini rights groups and justied government repression of sections of society.

The contract with the Manama government was agreed last month by the Prince's Foundation for Building Community and is being backed by the Foreign Ofce. But opposition activists said it sends a message that the British royal family approves of the regime and so gives "a green light" to the government to continue human rights abuses. Read More

UK company's spyware 'used against Bahrain activist', court papers claim

Spy technology from a UKbased company was used to target a British citizen who became a leading light in Bahrain's Arab spring, according to documents led in the high court. The witness statement of Dr Ala'a Shehabi is seen by

human rightsgroups as crucial in their attempt to force the government to examine the export of surveillance equipment. They want to secure a judicial review of the government's alleged failure to provide them with information on what action it is taking to establish whether the sale of the technology to repressive regimes is in breach of export-licence controls. Read More

UK spyware used against Bahraini activists court witness

UK spy technology was used against British citizen in Bahrain, new evidence led in a UK high court has claimed. Activists are

Diplomacy, threats, and Bahrains cabinet

Relations between Bahrain and the United States reached a new level of volatility this week as the kingdom's cabinet approved a parliamentary proposal to, as Information Minister Samira Rajab said, "put an end to the interference of U.S. Ambassador Thomas Krajeski in Bahrain's internal affairs." The

Bahraini cabinet's endorsement of a proposal to stop Krajeski from "interfering in domestic affairs" and meeting government opponents is a signicant move that should do more than raise eyebrows in Washington. While U.S. diplomats have been repeatedly attacked by the pro-government media and by the country's parliament for being too close to the pro-democracy opposition, attacks which included personal threats, this is different. Read More From his comments, speeches and interviews posted on the U.S. Embassy website in Bahrain, Ambassador Thomas Krajeski is an enthusiastic booster of U.S.-Bahraini relations. He voices only the mildest criticism about the countrys poor human rights record and the Sunni minoritys crackdown on protests by the Shiite majority. Read More Abdulemam was not at home.

Bahrain's 'inconvenient revolution' grows impatient

More than two years since pro-democracy protests began in Bahrain in February 2011,more than 80 people have been killedand thousands have been subjected to severe violence. Riot police continue to put down demonstrations, which are led mostly by the country's Shia Muslim majority. The

opposition protestors, in turn, are resorting toincreasingly militant tacticsto demand rights from the ruling Sunni minority, headed by the ruling family of King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa. Last Friday, Bahrains sectarian tug-of-war returned to international headlines when Ali Abdulemam, a prodemocracyblogger, escaped the island kingdom after spending nearly two years in hiding. Read More for rumors plz, was the last message the activist posted to his Twitter account on March 17, 2011.

Embassy Row: War on Bahrain

Lawmakers in the tiny but strategic nation of Bahrain are outraged with the United States and accuse the U.S. ambassador apparently a mild-manner professional diplomat of waging war against the Persian Gulf kingdom, home to the U.S. Navys 5th Fleet.

Missing Bahraini blogger surfaces in London

For the rst time since his mysterious disappearance more than two years ago, outspoken Bahraini opposition blogger Ali Abdulemam has reemerged in public. I get tired from my phone so I switched it of no need

That was two days after the government declared a state of emergency aimed at quelling an uprising demanding change in the Gulf kingdom. Suspecting he would be rounded up by the authorities, he went underground. There has been no trace of him until now. Read More his right to express his opinions. Rather, he was tried for inciting and encouraging continuous violent attacks against police ofcers. Abdulemam is the founder of Bahrain Online, a website that has repeatedly been used to incite hatred, including through the spreading of false and inammatory rumors. Read More

Bahrain Online founder Ali Abdulemam breaks silence after escape to UK

On 18 March 2011 in the middle of the Arab spring the home of the prominent Bahraini blogger and human rights activist Ali Abdulemam was raided by security forces, along with those of fellow protesters who had taken to the streets to call for reform.

But a few months later, while on the run, he was tried in absentia by a military court and sentenced to 15 years in prison for "plotting a coup". In hiding ever since, he arrived in the UK a month ago, after a dramatic escape from Bahrain. In his rst engagement since disappearing from public view, Abdulemam will speak next week at the Oslo Freedom Forum. Read More

Bahrain government statement on escaped activist

The following is a statement from the Bahraini government on escaped Bahraini activist Ali Abdulemam, as obtained by CNN. Ali Abdulemam was not tried in court for exercising

absentia and sentenced to 15 years in prison. On the website of American magazine The Atlantic, NGO Human Rights Foundation reports on how Ali Abdulemam managed to escape Bahrain. He was smuggled out of the kingdom into Saudi Arabia in a secret compartment of a car, he was then taken to Kuwait by land where shermen smuggled him into Iraq where he was own to London, where he has been granted political asylum in the British capital as he waits to be reunited with his wife and children. Read More he was forced into hiding because of the brutal regime we have in Bahrain.

Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam flees to UK

He had not been seen or heard of in over two years, but Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam has nally broken his silence after arriving in the UK last month. The human rights activist had been living in hiding since 2011 following the repression of the popular uprising in Bahrain, in the middle of the Arab Spring. He was tried in

Blogger Escapes from Bahrain, Government Responds

Bahraini blogger and freespeech advocateAli Abdulemamrecently escaped from the Kingdom of Bahrain after more than two years in hiding. A team of people and outside supporters, including artistTyler Ramsey and human rights groups Amnesty International and the American Islamic Congress, planned to sneak Abdulemam out of

the country in plain view and with the cooperation of his would-be captors. After a successful escape, Abdulemam has been granted asylum in the U.K. and awaits his wife and children, who are still in Bahrain. In response to the escape, the Bahraini government released a statement to CNNdescribing Abdulemam as the founder of Bahrain Online, a website that has repeatedly been used to incite hatred, including through the spreading of false and inammatory rumors. Read More smuggled out by shermen. A military court tried and sentenced him in absentia to 15 years in prison. "I have not seen my daughters since they were six-months-old. It is hard to know that your daughters know you only from a picture," said Abdulemam, a 35-year-old former engineer with Gulf Air and author of the pro-democracy Bahrain Online blog. Read More A desperate Mohammad Sikandar Samrat and his daughter Sara have been living in a park, mosque and car since November 2012 as his daughter does not have a passport and he is yet to get 65,000 Bahraini dinars owed to him by a Bahraini businessman, the Gulf Daily News reported Monday. Read More

Bahraini activist granted asylum in Britain

A Bahraini blogger and human rights activist, Ali Abduleman, says he has been granted political asylum in the UK after emerging from hiding after two years. Ali Abduleman, who resurfaced in London, said

The former IT specialist, who founded a prominent online blog in 1998, did not go into details of his life in hiding so as not to endanger his family who were are still in Bahrain, he told the IB Times UK at the Oslo Freedom Forum in London. Read More

Bahrain blogger escapes to Britain

A Bahraini blogger and human rights activist said he had been granted asylum in Britain after being in hiding for two years. A leading voice among protesters during antigovernment demonstrations in 2011, Ali Abdulemam hid to escape a government crackdown and was

Bahrain grants citizenship to 240 UK citizens

Bahrain has granted its nationality to 240 British citizens, King Hamad Bin Eisa Al Khalifa has said, adding that his country was home to 9,000 permanent British residents. There are some 9,000 permanent British residents in Bahrain making a major contribution to the

prosperity of the kingdom as they have always done, King Hamad said. Indeed I am proud to say that, by due legal process, we have granted Bahraini nationality to 240 British citizens as they themselves had requested and whose loyal service more than justied it, the Bahraini monarch said at a reception ceremony he hosted as he attended the rst International Windsor Endurance Festival at Windsor Great Park. Read More

Indian man, daughter forced to live out in the open in Bahrain

An expatriate Indian man and his three-year-old daughter in Bahrain have been forced to rough it out in the open for the last six months after a business deal went sour.

Bahrain: 20/20
There are many ways a dictatorship can present a respectable face to the world and its allies, ranging from crude lies to clever and subtle techniques to dominate the narrative of a given event. 20/20, a picture book documenting the protest movement in Bahrain of February and March 2011, is the latter. It is nothing more than a beautifully painted whitewash of history.

The Bahraini dictatorship is one that cares strongly for its image internationally. Unlike its neighbours in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain is not blessed with the same level of natural resources and wealth and therefore cannot rely solely on the tactic of silence for oil. Whereas Saudi will brazenly violate human rights, Bahrain promotes itself as the liberal alternative in the Gulf. Read More