6 May 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
Index on Censorship condemns last night’s arrest of Index’s 2012 Award winner and head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Nabeel Rajab and the ongoing harassment of human rights activists in Bahrain including the arrest of those involved in peaceful protests.
Kirsty Hughes, Chief Executive of Index said:
The arrest of Nabeel Rajab, and the continued targeting of other well-known activists, is deeply worrying and appears to link directly to Bahrain’s continuing failure to respect fundamental, and basic, rights including freedom of speech, and freedom to protest. Reforms have been promised by Bahrain but not delivered.
Bahrain must stop harassing human rights activists and recognise that freedom of expression and other fundamental rights are vital components of a free and open society. The Bahrain government should allow proper scrutiny of its actions: real transparency must include allowing both domestic and international rights organisations and journalists to report on and monitor ongoing unrest in the country.
Nabeel Rajab, BCHR - winner of Bindmans Award for Advocacy at the Index Freedom of Expression Awards 2012
Rajab was arrested as he flew into Manama’s airport last night. According to Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior, he was “detained under suspicion of committing several punishable crimes” but it is yet to specify the charges. Rajab was returning to Bahrain to face a court hearing on existing charges.
Rajab, who is also director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), has been a vocal critic of the human rights violations committed during Bahrain’s ongoing civil unrest, which first began with protests on 14 February last year.
While accepting an Index award on behalf of BCHR this year, Rajab called for assistance from the international community, explaining that members of BCHR – which was banned by authorities in 2004 – have been detained, tortured or exiled while attempting to exercise fundamental rights and freedoms including free expression and freedom of assembly (freedom to protest).
The founder of BCHR, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, is in detention awaiting a retrial after been jailed for life by a military tribunal for taking part in peaceful protests. He has been on hunger strike for 88 days. And Rajab’s arrest comes only weeks after the arrest of Abdulhadi Alkhawaja’ daughter, Zainab Alkhawaja, who was detained after protesting for the release of her father during the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix.
Earlier this week an international delegation of free expression organizations – including Index – were denied entry to the country.
3 May 2012 | News and features
The last year has seen tumultuous shifts for media freedom. But core problems still remain in the world’s troublespots, says Padraig Reidy
(more…)
1 May 2012 | Middle East and North Africa
Bahrain’s Court of Cassation yesterday ordered a retrial in a civilian court for activist and hunger striker Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and twenty other activists. Alkhawaja was originally sentenced to life in prison by a military tribunal in June 2011 for his involvement in last year’s anti-government protests.
Despite ordering a re-trial, the court decided to keep Alkhawaja and the other activists in custody while their cases are reviewed.
The Bahraini government claim the trial will be revisited as an entirely different case, which falls in line with the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission for Inquiry (BICI) report released last November. According to recommendation 1720, all cases tried by the military court should be re-reviewed by a civilian court.
In a press conference yesterday, Alkhawaja’s wife Khadija al-Moussawi expressed her disappointment that her husband has not been freed. She told reporters that her spouse is being tied to a bed and force fed, even though the activist has been on hunger strike for more than 80 days. al-Moussawi does not believe her husband can get a fair trial saying: “It’s the same system, same court in different clothes, same people running the show”.
Twenty medics jailed for treating injured protesters were also granted retrials despite international pressure on the Kingdom to void their convictions. Said Yousif, of Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) expressed doubt that the 20 can ever find justice.
“The Minister of Justice was involved in charging the doctors before their trials were complete, yet he is a senior official in implementing the BICI report’s recommendations, which is not fair” said Yousif, echoing the words of al-Moussawi.
Wafi al-Majed, Alkhawaja’s son-in-law said the opposition would have positively greeted the development if prisoners were released to await trial. He expressed concern that retrial could “go on for a long time”.
Reports of the activist’s deteriorating health have led many to believe that he is already nearing death, and his continued detention only increases the likelihood that he might die in prison.
Yousif said the continued detention means its hard for the protesters to build faith in the Bahraini government’s claims of reform. “Officials guilty of torture should be held accountable, and political detainees should also be freed. This would shed a positive light on any reform process” he told Index.
Meanwhile, Alkhawaja’s daughter Zainab Alkhawaja who blogs as Angry Arabia, remains in prison after she was arrested on 21 April, while protesting the Bahrain Grand Prix. Information is limited but according to her husband, she faces four charges.
In the past Alkhawaja has been arrested and released but her mother fears that this time her daughter, who she describes as a “headache for the government”, may be kept in prison long-term.
26 Apr 2012 | Uncategorized
In a speech at Washington DC’s Holocaust Memorial Museum this week, Barack Obama this week announced US measures against technology companies aiding the Syrian and Iranian regimes in tracking and monitoring of members of the opposition. Here’s the introduction from the Executive Order signed this week, worth quoting at length:
I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, hereby determine that the commission of serious human rights abuses against the people of Iran and Syria by their governments, facilitated by computer and network disruption, monitoring, and tracking by those governments, and abetted by entities in Iran and Syria that are complicit in their governments’ malign use of technology for those purposes, threaten the national security and foreign policy of the United States. The Governments of Iran and Syria are endeavoring to rapidly upgrade their technological ability to conduct such activities. Cognizant of the vital importance of providing technology that enables the Iranian and Syrian people to freely communicate with each other and the outside world, as well as the preservation, to the extent possible, of global telecommunications supply chains for essential products and services to enable the free flow of information, the measures in this order are designed primarily to address the need to prevent entities located in whole or in part in Iran and Syria from facilitating or committing serious human rights abuses.
It’s another indicator of the fact that the online element is now an essential part of any conflict. Since Hillary Clinton’s speech on the web in January 2010, the US has positioned itself as the defender of the free internet against the censorious, snooping impulses of Iran, China et al.
Our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the United States have welcomed the White House move as ultimately “a good thing”, though with caveats. EFF say:
First, here’s what the order does accomplish:
It sanctions individuals and entities in Iran and Syria that are “complicit in their government’s malign use of technology” for the purposes of network disruption, monitoring, or tracking of individuals.
It aims to prevent entities (including companies) from facilitating or committing serious human rights abuses in Syria.
It bars the contribution or receipt of funds to any individual or entity named on the list contained within the order.
Notably, the order makes mention of companies that have “sold, leased or otherwise provided, directly or indirectly, goods, services or technology to Iran or Syria likely to be used to facilitate computer or network disruption, monitoring, or tracking that could assist in or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of [the two countries’ governments]” (emphasis ours). This is notable because, when it was discovered that their products had made it to Syria and were being used by the regime to monitor network communications, executives of U.S. company BlueCoat denied knowledge of their products being in Syria.
Now, for what the order does not accomplish:
The order is solely focused on Syria and Iran, leaving out—most notably—Bahrain, where a protester was killed this weekend by police forces as well as, of course, other countries that engage in technology-related human rights violations. Bahraini human rights groups have documented the use of Trovicor technologies in surveillance there, leading to—in some cases—torture.
The order does not loosen existing restrictions by the Department of Commerce, whichbar the export of “good” technologies—including web hosting, Google Earth, and Java—to Syrians. At the Stockholm Internet Forum for Global Development last week, Syrian activist Mohammad Al Abdallah raised the Commerce restrictions as a consistent frustration amongst Syrian activists on the ground. While Treasury restrictions on Iran have been revised time and again, Commerce restrictions go unchanged.
Read the rest of Jillian C. York’s analysis here. Index very much supports EFF’s point on the lack of attention given to Bahrain.
