Bahrain Press Association (BPA) – The Semi-annual report 2021: Documenting 15 violations of freedom of expression and depriving opposition leaders and journalists of “alternative penalties”

Bahrain Press Association (BPA), London, 21 July 2021: The Bahrain Press Association (BPA) has documented 15 violations against journalists, media professionals and cyber-activists during the first half of 2021. This brings the number of violations since the beginning of the political crisis in the country in 2011 to the end of June 2021 to about 1721 violations of freedom of opinion and expression.

The recorded cases the BPA documented from January to June 2021 were as follows: 6 cases were brought before the police or the Public Prosecution for interrogation, 5 detention cases and 4 lawsuits and penalties. The most prominent charges brought against the interrogees, detainees, or those who were convicted in courts or through administrative procedures were “denouncing normalization”, “questioning the efforts of the national team to combat coronavirus”, “insulting the judiciary”, “criticizing the Ministry of Interior” and “violating public morals”.

Declined violations and limited presence of public affairs

Compared to previous years, a decline in the number of cases classified as violations of media freedoms and freedom of opinion and expression can be noted. The BPA documented 78 violations during the same period last year. This decline is not owing to a rising level of freedoms or less tight security measures against criticism of the state and its institutions, but rather to the withdrawal of most activists and citizens from engaging in public discussions explicitly or in their own names. Instead, they use equivocal and cautious expressions to avoid monitoring by security authorities. The parliament’s passage (April 20, 2021) of a decree prohibiting members of parliament themselves from “criticizing, blaming or accusing” the government may be the most prominent example reflecting the stifling atmosphere that the country has reached. The law, which has been implicitly pushed by the government, is a step that falls in the context of many other steps that have made criticizing the government and its authorities and officials very costly, if not impossible.

Despite the progress made by the Bahraini government in drafting the Alternative Penal Code, which enabled the release of hundreds of convicts from prisons, those convicted in cases related to freedom of opinion and expression, especially opposition political leaders and journalists, are still excluded from this conditional release although some of them are in poor health conditions.

The bogeyman of cybercrimes

The Ministry of Interior’s Cybercrime Directorate plays a prominent role in monitoring and prosecuting government critics, especially on the Internet and cyberspace.

The Directorate has broad powers to summon, interrogate and detain Tweeters (the most popular platform in the country), activists in various social media and those who express their opinions via virtual platforms.

BPA continues to urge the government, especially, under the new presidency of the Crown Prince and Prime Minister Prince, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, to take a bold decision to stop the deterioration in media freedoms that has continued since 2011 by allowing freedoms and reforming the work of the cybercrime unit by stopping it grip from reaching to public discussions. The BPA calls upon the competent government agencies to reconsider the cases of the opposition leaders and journalists convicted in expression-related lawsuits under the alternative penal code. Furthermore, the BPA calls on the state to take a corrective action towards journalists whose nationalities have been revoked in violation of the provisions of constitution and law.

Investigation and Interrogation

On 4th January 2021, the Cybercrime Directorate summoned journalist Jaafar Al-Jamri for interrogation over a tweet he reposted criticizing Bahrain’s normalization of its relations with Israel. On 11th February 2021, the Directorate summoned Al-Jamri for the second time for interrogation concerning complaints against him by the Ministry of Education after tweeting about the “Future Schools.”

On 27th January 2021, the Public Prosecution summoned nutritionist Dr. Alia Al-Moayad. It accused her of “working against the efforts of the national team to combat the Coronavirus” after she had published a blog about the vaccines used in Bahrain.

On 21st March 2021, the Cybercrime directorate summoned lawyer Abdullah Hashem for interrogation upon a complaint filed against him by Al-Arabiya’s correspondent after he had criticized him in a tweet.

On 11th May 2021, the Public Prosecution summoned former MP Muhammad Khaled, a member of the Islamic Minbar Association, for interrogation about retweeting the Kuwaiti writer, Dr. Jassem Al-Jazza, who criticised the Gulf regimes for normalizing relations with Israel. On 24th May 2021, the Cybercrime Directorate summoned a 52-year-old woman for a tweet that the Directorate deemed as “an insult to a denomination in the country and incitement to hatred of a religious sect.”

Arrests

On 7th January 2021, the Ministry of Interior arrested a 44-year-old woman for publishing content on her “Instagram” account that the Ministry described as “promoting immorality”. On 23rd February 2021, the Ministry of Interior arrested a 35-year-old woman for the same charge after posting a video clip on social media including what the Ministry called “statements contrary to public morals.”

On 13th May 2021, the Ministry of Interior arrested the Bahraini citizen Mortada Al-Laith after criticizing a statement issued by the Ministry in response to the Qatari “Al-Jazeera” channel. It claimed that there are no political prisoners in Bahrain. He said, “the Ministry of Interior states that there is not a single political prisoner. Is it possible, brothers? Perhaps he had gone to the bathroom or the clinic, thus, you did not count him! International human rights organizations, the US Congress and the European Union declare that there are political prisoners.”

On 23rd June 2021, the Ministry of Interior arrested the retired naval colonel Muhammad Al-Zayani for posting a video on his “Instagram” account on, in which he indirectly addressed corruption in the judiciary, saying, “If a person is corrupt and the judge helps him, then there is corruption.” On 30th June 2021, the security authorities arrested the former parliamentarian Osama Al-Tamimi from the hospital a day after he had published an audio clip accusing the authorities of “injecting him with a toxic substance during his arrest that led to a stroke in the brain.”

Judicial procedures and penalties

On 22nd March 2021, the General Directorate of Investigation and Criminal Evidence obliged the Secretary-General of the Unionist Assembly, Hassan Al-Marzouq, to pay a fine after being sentenced with a ruling, which he said he did not know about. The case was based on an old tweet about the siege of the village of Diraz.

On 31st March 2021, a Bahraini court sentenced a 44-year-old woman to 6 months in prison for “advocating and promoting the practice of adultery” after she had posted a video on social media. On 6th April 2021, the Minor Criminal Court sentenced Ahmed Saad to 3 years in prison for “insulting the judiciary” upon publishing a video clip in which he complained about members of the judiciary for a lawsuit he had in court.

On 22 March 2021, the Lawyers’ Disciplinary Council decided, based on a lawsuit filed by the Minister of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments, Sheikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa (22 March 2021) to prevent lawyer Abdullah Al-Shamlawi from practicing the profession of “law” for a period of one year due to his tweet about a religious matter regarding Ashura Day fasting.