Nabeel Rajab, BCHR - winner of Bindmans Award for Advocacy at the Index Freedom of Expression Awards 2012
OPINION This week Bahrain continued its game of cat and mouse with human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, releasing him once more on Wednesday after re-arresting him on 6 June. The outspoken activist and president of Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) has been arrested, released, and arrested again — all in the past two months. Although Rajab is now free, he still faces four charges, two of them for posts he made on the social networking site Twitter, and two others related to organising protests. Charges were brought against the activist for allegedly insulting and publicly defaming the Sunni citizens of the village of Muharraq on Twitter, as well as insulting an authority on the popular social networking site. According to his lawyer, Rajab will stand trial on 9 July.
Rajab’s fearlessness in speaking out against the regime’s human rights abuses mean that the Index on Censorship Award winning activist could very well land in prison again. Still, it is promising that Rajab’s release came after the government announced that it would finally begin compensating families of the 35 individuals killed during a brutalcrackdown on the country’s anti-government protests that began on 14 February last year. Shortly after the announcement, human rights activist Zainab Alkhawaja was injured after a tear gas canister was allegedly fired directly at her hit her in the thigh. Alkhawaja is the daughter of well-known dissident and founder of BCHR Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is currently serving a life sentence for participating in anti-government protests last year.
Last November Bahrain released the findings of its much vaunted Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) but the country’s sluggish progress in implementing the report’s recommendations calls into question the country’s commitment to genuine reform. Whenever Bahraini officials are confronted with evidence of human rights violations they respond with statements about reform and dialogue but little action is taken.
On Thursday, 27 United Nations member states released a joint statement calling on the Human Rights Council to push Bahrain to end human rights violations. Noticeably missing from the list of countries — which included Switzerland, Mexico, Denmark, and Norway — were close allies the United States and the United Kingdom, despite having made statements about helping the country commit to reform. Bahrain responded to the statement by saying that the information in the statement is “inaccurate” and that the countries that signed the statement did not understand the “reality” of the human rights situation in the country.
Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin
We are looking to recruit correspondents with excellent local contacts, expertise and language skills in Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, East Africa, India, Thailand (covering East Asia)
To widen our reach and impact both at home and abroad, in 2010 Index on Censorship launched a worldwide regional editors programme. Each year we have established new correspondents in different priority regions for freedom of expression, each one led by a regional expert with local contacts and language skills.
These part-time positions are offered on a 12-month basis, with the intention and possibility that editors will continue to contribute to Index at the end of this period.
Correspondents play an essential role in Index’s plans for website expansion. Their role is to contribute original copy to the Index website on freedom of expression in their country and some of the other countries in the region. This will support Index’s website – which is currently undergoing a redesign – in becoming one of the foremost portals for discussing free speech around the world, to develop original content and new audiences, break news, publish insightful analysis, interviews and opinion, and share ideas through social media. Editors may also be asked to contribute to Index’s quarterly award-winning magazine, suggest contributors and help to research / commission pieces.
As well as writing for the site we want correspondents to help connect us to a wider group of contributors and bloggers – advising us on emerging artists, musicians, free speech advocates, lawyers and writers directly engaging with censorship and other challenging political issues. Index correspondents will also communicate with Index colleagues based in London giving short updates on the wider political context and developments within which freedom of expression challenges sit.
Index correspondents must have excellent writing skills and proven writing experience and be able to contribute blogposts and longer articles to Index’s website both at short notice, for breaking news, and through planned features and interviews. They will also be expected to submit original ideas for articles and features. Ideally correspondents should have multimedia skills and the ability to submit video / audio interviews for our site. Correspondents should also be adept at using social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc)
Applicants should also have proven expertise in writing about and/or commenting on freedom expression.
The experts will coordinate closely with Index’s web team, and also where relevant our advocacy team, under the direction of online editor Emily Butselaar.
Index correspondents will situate their writing and other work for Index mostly within our five overarching themes: free expression in the digital world; religion and culture; totalitarian and authoritarian regimes; the use of national security, public order and defamation as excuses for censorship in democracies; and access to free expression (eg issues of illiteracy or discrimination as they impact directly on free expression). They will work to a discrete programme of activities in each region, to enhance and extend Index on Censorship’s publishing activities, advocacy initiatives and arts programming, including a special focus on free expression in the world of literature.
In-country correspondents will also be expected to cover wider issues in the region in which they are based – for instance our Turkey correspondent will also need to look at issues in Iran and Syria.
If you are interested in applying for one of these positions please write to Emily Butselaar via jobs[at]indexoncensorship.org
Comics Dara Ó Briain and Dave Gorman and scientist Professor Brian Cox joined Index and the Libel Reform Campaign at Downing Street to demand a public interest defence in the defamation bill
Paul Chambers, the man at the centre of the “Twitter Joke Trial”, has had a torrid two-and-a-half-years since he joked that he would blow Robin Hood airport “sky high”. He was back in court on Wednesday. This Al Jazeera report sums up the issue nicely.
Anyway, in spite of his woes, Paul hasn’t lost his sense of humour, as demonstrated on Twitter last night. Former Conservative minister Edwina Currie, discussing the case on Twitter, wrote: “I’m blowing the airport sky high” is not a metaphor. Can be construed as a threat. [Chambers] was a damn fool, paid dearly for it.”
Clear cut then: making what are obviously jokey “threats” on Twitter is the action of a damn fool. But it didn’t take long for damn-fool Chambers to dig up this tweet from Edwina Currie herself: “oh I’d shoot tax exiles! When they need high quality health care they’re back in the UK double quick. Never make connection”.
This is funny, but it does illustrate the whole problem of the Twitter Joke Trial: everyone uses over-the-top language, and we often express our anger, outrage and frustration with words alluding to violence. What’s happening to Paul Chambers could happen to any of us, even Edwina Currie.
