In the last week, Bahrain’s treatment of its citizens and their right to free expression has been repeatedly in the news. Sara Yasin reports on a spate of developments that raise questions about the Bahraini government’s commitment to free speech.

Blogger and activist Ali Abdulemam has been granted asylum in the United Kingdom. Abdulemam’s two years in hiding began shortly after the start of Bahrain’s political unrest in February 2011. He was sentenced in absentia to fifteen years in prison on charges of attempting to overthrow the monarchy.

Abdulemam is the prominent founder of Bahrain Online, a site that created an online space to criticise and discuss the country’s regime in 1998. Initially, he wrote anonymously, but he began to write in his own name in 2001. Public dissent in Bahrain comes at a price: the blogger was first arrested in 2005 and then once more in 2010.

News of Abdulemam’s heroic escape did not amuse Bahrain’s government:

Ali Abdulemam was not tried in court for exercising his right to express his opinions. Rather, he was tried for inciting and encouraging continuous violent attacks against police officers. Abdulemam is the founder of Bahrain Online, a website that has repeatedly been used to incite hatred, including through the spreading of false and inflammatory rumors.

The statement goes on to say that the country “respects the right of its citizens to express their opinion”, but makes a distinction between expressing an opinion and “engaging in and encouraging violence.”

Back in 2010, Abdulemam was jailed, tortured, and accused of being a part of a “terrorist network.” The real threat he posed to the state, as fellow activist Ala’a Shehabi put it last year, was that “his forum offered dissidents a voice.”

So what does “incitement” look like in Bahrain? For documenting a protest on Twitter last December, Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) member Said Yousif, was jailed and charged with “spreading false news.” According to the country’s laws, “the dissemination of the false news must amount to incitement to violence.” As Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director, Sarah Lea Witson put it:

If Bahraini officials believe that an activist is inciting violence by tweeting a picture of an injured demonstrator, then it’s clear that all the human rights sessions they’ve attended have been wasted.

The jailed head of the organisation, Nabeel Rajab, is currently serving a two year sentence for organising “illegal protests.” BCHR released a statement today expressing concerns that Rajab has been transferred to solitary confinement. He has been unreachable since relaying to his wife an account of young political prisoners being tortured earlier this week. Rajab was requesting a visit from the International Committee of the Red Cross, to document the case.

Still, Bahrain insists that freedom of expression is something that it upholds — in fact, it has gone so far as prosecuting individuals for supposedly abusing it. Just yesterday, year-long sentences were handed to six Twitter users for making posts insulting Bahrain’s King Hamad. For hanging a Bahraini flag from his truck during protests in 2011, a man was handed a three-month jail sentence today.

Looks like it might be time for Bahrain to reevaluate how it understands freedom of expression.

More Coverage >>>

• British embassy in Bahrain gets World Press Freedom Day wrong
• In Depth: Bahrain

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The FCO’s World Press Freedom Day blog contains some impressive posts on press freedom in Zimbabwe, Vietnam and other countries.

Unfortunately, the British Embassy in Bahrain seems to have gone somewhat off message. They tweeted earlier:

On #WPFD we asked Bahraini journalists and commentators to write on the freedom of expression in Bahrain ow.ly/kFCFb

— UK Embassy Bahrain (@UKinBahrain) May 3, 2013

The link leads to two articles: one by Anwar Abdulrahman, of the pro-Bahraini regime Akhbar Al Khaleej and its sister paper Gulf Daily News, and one bylined “Citizens for Bahrain“, apparently a pro-government astroturfing exercise.

The pieces themselves are quite something: Abdulrahman is worth quoting at length:

From my desk as Editor-in-Chief, I believe that freedom should be based on humanness, righteousness and debate, not anarchy and terror. For in this era of open skies and the Internet, to misuse freedom is easy. Any story can be fabricated, any person or government defamed at the touch of a computer screen.

Another thought…as much as beasts cannot be left to roam freely, so in human society the feral element’s freedom should be under control.

That’s the Bahraini opposition, many of whom have been locked up for exercising their right to free expression, he’s referring to as the “feral element”.

Citizens for Bahrain, meanwhile, inform us:

It is time to practice this freedom in a suitable manner and not to abuse it. Freedom of the press is certainly a right, but it must be used with care and wisdom. When used such a manner it can be influential in developing and enlightening society, making this society more resilient both in times of trouble and times of peace.

In conclusion, we say this: Express your views openly and honestly; but put your country before your personal interests.

That is to say, “shut up”.

Why the embassy chooses to mark World Press Freedom Day by publishing two articles in support of censorship, and a regime that imprisons protesters, including Index award winner Nabeel Rajab, is a mystery.

Update: The embassy has moved to distance itself from the views expressed in the blog posts.

Padraig Reidy is senior writer for Index on Censorship. @mePadraigReidy

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Nabeel Rajab, BCHR – winner of Bindmans Award for Advocacy at the Index Freedom of Expression Awards 2012

Index on Censorship has called upon the Bahraini government to release 2012 Index  Freedom of Expression Award winner Nabeel Rajab and other prisoners of conscience, and honour its promises to uphold freedom of expression.

Index’s Chief Executive Kirsty Hughes said:

“The continued imprisonment of Nabeel Rajab and other activists shows that Bahrain is not serious about reform. The targeting of human rights activists and imprisonment of prisoners of conscience shows that government commitments to reform are for now meaningless.

“Index calls on the Bahrain government to respect  the right to peaceful protest and the right to free speech, to end its violations of these rights and to implement fully the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI).”

According to the Project on Middle East Democracy, the government of Bahrain has only succeeded in fully implementing three of the 26 recommendations made by the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) report in November 2011.

Members of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) have faced repression from Bahrain’s regime for their tireless work documenting human rights violations committed by the government, since popular protests began on 14 February 2011. According to BCHR, there have been 89 deaths since the start of the country’s uprising.

In March 2012, accepting the Index on Censorship Advocacy award on behalf of BCHR, human rights activist Nabeel Rajab said that the international community heard little about uprisings in Bahrain because “we have oil”. He is currently serving a two-year sentence for organising so-called “illegal gatherings”. The founder of BCHR, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, is on hunger-strike to protest his ill-treatment in prison. Alkhawaja is currently serving a life sentence for allegedly plotting to overthrow the ruling regime. His daughter Zainab is also on hunger strike and serving a three-month jail sentence.

In April, international attention will once again turn to Bahrain when it hosts the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Last year, the Bahraini government attempted to use the race to gain positive international attention while continuing to clamp down on protesters who are critical of the regime.

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Index on Censorship condemns the sentencing in Bahrain today of human rights defender and Index award winner Nabeel Rajab to three years in prison for charges related to “illegal gathering”.

Kirsty Hughes, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, said:

“We strongly condemn the imprisonment of Nabeel Rajab for speaking out against human rights violations. It shows the lengths Bahrain’s government will go to silence activists — and exposes their token statements in favour of reform as phoney. Index calls for the immediate release of Rajab, and for the Bahrain government to respect fully universal human rights, and to implement a serious reform process as promised since last year.”

Prominent human rights defender and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) Nabeel Rajab, was today sentenced to three years in prison for charges related to “illegal gathering”. Rajab, who was awarded an Index on Censorship Free Expression Award this year, has spoken out internationally against the human rights violations committed by the Bahrain’s government following a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests on 14 February 2011. Despite promises of reform, including commissioning an independent inquiry into the country’s crackdown following February last year, unrest continues in the troubled Gulf Kingdom.

Rajab still faces defamation charges for allegedly insulting the Sunni residents of Muharraq on Twitter. The verdict in that case has been postponed until 23 August.

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