WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY 2026: End the Strangulation of Bahrain’s Media & Online Expression (Joined Statement)
London / Beirut
Bahrain – World Press Freedom Day 2026: End the strangulation of Bahrain’s media and online expression
On World Press Freedom Day 2026, the government of Bahrain continues to criminalise dissent through laws that violate Bahrain’s international human rights obligations, through heavy restrictions on media ownership and the arbitrary arrest of those who peacefully express their views online or in peaceful gatherings. This suppression has strangled Bahrain’s media and online expression and severely restricted people’s rights to peaceful assembly and association. The government must urgently amend media ownership laws and those relating to expression in order to abide by its own human rights commitments.
In contrast to the values of World Press Freedom Day, the Bahraini authorities’ actions demonstrate that they reject the vital role of a free, independent, and pluralistic media in building lasting peace and security. The government owns all national broadcast media outlets and individuals with close ties to the government run the main privately-owned newspapers: no independent media outlets are able to operate in Bahrain. Furthermore, in 2017, the Bahraini authorities closed down the country’s only non-state owned newspaper, Al-Wasat.
Repressive legislation criminalises peaceful expression in Bahrain. On October 30, 2025, the King issued the Press and Electronic Media Law No. (41) of 2025. This law represents a serious regression from Bahrain’s constitutional and international obligations regarding freedom of opinion, expression, and press freedoms. It expands prior censorship and punitive administrative measures to include digital media, while leaving the door open for criminal prosecution through other legislation, most notably the Penal Code and the Counter-Terrorism Law. The law is a setback due to its blatant contradiction of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bahrain is a state party, which stipulates that restrictions on freedom of opinion, expression, and the press must be strictly limited, necessary, and proportionate to a legitimate aim. A thorough reading of the proposed texts and a comparison with existing legislation reveals that these amendments offer no real breakthrough in the area of freedoms. On the contrary, they strengthen the state’s tools for controlling the media and electronic spaces and keep journalists and media institutions under constant threat of prosecution and administrative closure.
Despite the removal of the direct imprisonment penalty from the articles of the new Press Law, the law maintains the general reference to “any stricter penalty in other laws,” which allows journalists and internet activists to be tried under the Penal Code or other laws, which opens the door to harsher prison sentences. Therefore, “abolishing imprisonment” becomes merely a trick directed at the international community to beautify Bahrain’s human rights image, while the reality remains the same: journalists are vulnerable to imprisonment under the cover of other laws.
The Bahraini authorities restrict access to media by blocking websites and they remove a variety of content published online, especially social media posts criticising the government. Foreign journalists rarely have access to Bahrain and face difficulties obtaining entry visas to the country, and their speech is limited when they do have access.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Bahrain 157th out of 180 in its 2025 World Press Freedom Index. In 2025, Freedom House ranked Bahrain’s ‘global freedom’ at 12/100, its ‘internet freedom’ at 30/100 and classified Bahrain as ‘not free’.
Bahrain’s repressive media environment exacerbates social and sectarian divisions in a context of conflict
Between late February and April 2026, the US and Israel carried out thousands of attacks across Iran. Iran’s response has impacted, amongst other countries, Bahrain. The state-owned Bahrain News Agency reported that, as of 19 March 2026, at least two people had been killed in the country and at least 46 had been injured. Pre-existing media restrictions which require, broadly, the media to echo government positions, meant that Bahrainis could not express their various assessments and sentiments in respect to the regional conflict and its impact on them: restrictions that serve to augment social tension, rather than provide a release and space for public discourse.
On 1 March 2026, hours after Iranian state media confirmed the death of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, large crowds of Bahraini Shi’a took to the streets in peaceful demonstrations mourning his death and protesting US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
On 5 March, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry’s Civil Defense Council declared it was banning protests “in order to preserve public safety and enhance civil protection measures.”
On 9 March 2026, the Public Prosecutors’ office called for the imposition of the death penalty for some of those detained, “due to their involvement in espionage.”
Human rights organizations have documented hundreds of arrests since the start of the conflict. The justifications offered by the Bahraini authorities for these arrests included: sharing images showing damage caused by attacks within Bahrain; sending videos depicting this damage to external parties; and filming missile and drone strikes and posting the footage online. Others were arrested for participating in demonstrations or expressing political opinions related to the events unfolding in the region.
One such example of the sweeping arrests carried out by the Bahraini authorities was reported on 3 April 2026 by Associated Press, revealing that on 1 March, “21-year-old Hussein Fatiil and a friend posted social media videos of themselves waving a poster of Iran’s supreme leader at a protest outside the U.S. Embassy” and that “minutes later, plainclothes officers took them away in an unmarked car.” The men made one phone call home, but only three days later did Hussein Fatiil inform his family in a phone call that the authorities charged him with five offenses, including “misusing social media and inciting hatred and treason.”
On 7 April 2026, Bahrain’s General Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Forensic Science summoned prominent environmental activist and artist Mohammed Jawad Hameed, who remains in detention after an initial 15-day period was extended.
On 23 April 2026, the Bahrain Human Rights Society provided an updated snapshot of the arrests relating to the conflict (from 1 March to 21 April, 2026), comprising:
• 309 people detained since the beginning of the war, including four women and eight non-Bahrainis;
• 25 people released following arrest, including six women, one of whom was married to a Bahraini, and whom the government deported; and
• 284 people currently detained;
• 24 people under the age of 18 detained, of whom the government transferred 17 to the Dry Dock Detention Centre [for minors];
• 1 death in custody (Sayed Mohammed Al-Mousawi).
The undersigned organisations seek to verify the identities of those detained and the charges against them, and to ensure that due process is respected in line with international human rights standards.
We urge the Bahraini government to take immediate action to reduce societal and sectarian tensions in the country by taking concrete steps to implement the specific and long-standing recommendations issued by successive UN treaty bodies and international partners, such as the European Union and the United Kingdom, including those made under the Universal Periodic Review, which call for:
• Ending the effective strangulation of the media environment and digital and non-digital expression, whether written or oral, by repealing and amending ownership regulations and laws criminalising critical expression;
• Repealing and amending the political isolation laws issued in 2018, including those restricting civic space;
• Ensuring the government’s full compliance with international human rights standards to which Bahrain is legally bound.
We also call on Bahrain’s international partners to urge their counterparts in the Bahraini authorities to:
• Ensure due process in the administration of justice in the context of ongoing arrest campaigns carried out by the Bahraini authorities;
• Repeal and amend regulations related to media platform ownership;
• Repeal and amend provisions criminalising the peaceful expression of deeply held beliefs and convictions;
• Take concrete measures to guarantee media freedom in Bahrain, and hold the authorities accountable for ensuring elections that comply with Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Additional information
The human rights crisis that Bahrain experienced in 2011 continues to cast a shadow over current government behaviour regarding the criminalisation of freedom of expression; members of the Bahraini political opposition, human rights defenders and journalists remain behind bars due to their participation in pro-democracy protests in 2011 and their continued human rights activism, having been deliberately excluded from royal pardon decrees.
One of the most emblematic cases is that of Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace, a Bahraini writer, engineer, academic and prominent human rights defender, aged 64, who was arrested by the authorities in March 2011 due to his role in peaceful pro-democracy protests. Since July 2021, he has been on an open-ended hunger strike in protest against the confiscation of his written academic research, surviving on minimal nutritional supplements, and recent reports indicate that he has even refused saline solutions.
Another prominent human rights defender, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, remains detained and is serving a life sentence for his role in the 2011 protests. Al-Khawaja has repeatedly been subjected to punishment for openly speaking about prison conditions and for carrying out rights-based protests inside prison.
These cases represent stark examples of the broader repressive approach adopted by the Bahraini authorities against anyone exercising their right to freedom of expression.
Signatories
• FairSquare
• MENA Rights Group
• Bahrain Press Association
• Human Rights Watch
• Gulf Centre for Human Rights
• ALQST for Human Rights
• Bahrain Forum for Human Rights
• Gulf Institute for Democracy and Human Rights
• Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
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