20 Dec 16 | Bahrain, Bahrain Letters, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]H.E. Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais Wilson
52 rue des Pâquis
CH-1201 Geneva
Switzerland
CC: David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on Free Expression
Michele Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
Dear Mr. High Commissioner,
We, the undersigned human rights organizations, write to urge your office to urgently and publicly call on the Government of Bahrain to immediately and unconditionally release human rights defender Nabeel Rajab and drop the charges against him. His next, and likely final, trial date is scheduled for 28 December.
Nabeel Rajab’s trial is ongoing following the fifth extension of his court proceedings on 15 December. The further delay of Rajab’s trial to late December is additionally concerning due to the precedent established by the Bahraini government to take advantage of the time period around the end of year holidays to further violate human rights. For example, on 28 December 2014, the Government of Bahrain arrested and charged Sheikh Ali Salman, the Secretary General of the now dissolved Al-Wefaq political society, in relation to his free expression. Salman continues to serve a nine-year arbitrary prison sentence following his own lengthy trial.
This December, Nabeel Rajab could face up to 15 years in prison on charges regarding tweets and re-tweets from his account addressing torture in Bahrain’s Jau Prison, as well as criticizing Bahrain’s participation in Saudi Arabia-led military operations in Yemen. These military actions in Yemen, according to the United Nations, have so far been responsible for the deaths of more than 8,100 civilians, and include numerous unlawful airstrikes on markets, homes, hospitals, and schools. Rajab’s comments on Twitter about the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Yemen led to his arrest on 2 April 2015. Bahrain’s penal code provides for up to 10 years in prison for anyone who “deliberately announces in wartime false or malicious news, statements or rumors.”
Since June 2016, Rajab has been held in pre-trial detention, including two weeks of solitary confinement following his initial arrest.
Bahraini authorities released Rajab on 13 July 2015 in accordance with a royal pardon for previous Twitter-related charges following extensive international pressure. However, the Public Prosecution maintained this second round of charges against Rajab following his release and ordered his re-arrest nearly a year later on 13 June 2016. Rajab is also facing charges of “offending a foreign country” – Saudi Arabia – and “offending national institutions” for his comments about the torture of inmates at Jau Prison in March 2015. In October 2016, after months of trial hearings, the court reopened his case for investigation rather than dismissing the charges against him due to the lack of evidence.
Moreover, the government brought an additional charge against Rajab in relation to an open letter published in the New York Times on 4 September 2016. The Bahraini authorities immediately responded by charging Rajab with “undermining the prestige of the state.”
Since June 2016, Rajab has been held in pre-trial detention, including two weeks of solitary confinement following his initial arrest. The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-Custodial Measures state that “pre-trial detention shall be used as a means of last resort in criminal proceedings, with due regard for the investigation of the alleged offence and for the protection of society and the victim.” The government’s use of pretrial solitary confinement against Nabeel Rajab while prosecuting him for free expression is clearly an additional form of reprisal for his work as a human rights defender and is in breach of the UN’s standards for detention.
Nabeel Rajab is the co-founder and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, the founding director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, a Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) from 2012 to 2016, and holds advisory positions with Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience. His human rights activism and his peaceful criticism of the Bahraini authorities have resulted in his imprisonment on two previous occasions, between May 2012 and May 2014, and between January 2015 and July 2015.
Mr. High Commissioner, your office has pursued and published a number of communications in relation to human rights abuses perpetuated against Nabeel Rajab. Yet with his likely final court appearance approaching, it is imperative, now more than ever, to use the weight of your office to publicly defend him. We therefore call on you to issue a public statement in defense of Nabeel Rajab as a human rights defender arbitrarily detained for his free and peaceful expression. We further urge you to publicly call on the Government of Bahrain to immediately and unconditionally release Rajab, and to drop all charges against him.
Sincerely,
- Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain
- Albanian Media Institute
- Amnesty International
- Article 19
- Association of Caribbean Media Workers
- Bahrain Center for Human Rights
- Bahrain Human Rights Society
- Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
- Bahrain Press Association
- Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism
- Cambodian Center for Human Rights
- Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
- Center for Media Studies & Peace Building
- CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
- Digital Rights Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- English PEN
- European-Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights
- European Center for Democracy and Human Rights
- Foro de Periodismo Argentino
- Foundation for Press Freedom – FLIP
- Free Media Movement
- Freedom Forum
- Freedom House
- Free Media Movement
- Globe International Center
- Gulf Centre for Human Rights
- Independent Journalism Center – Moldova
- Index on Censorship
- International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
- International Press Institute
- International Service for Human Rights
- Journaliste en danger
- Maharat Foundation
- MARCH
- Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
- Media Institute of Southern Africa
- Media Watch
- National Union of Somali Journalists
- No Peace Without Justice
- Norwegian PEN
- OpenMedia
- Pacific Freedom Forum
- Pacific Island News Association
- Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms – MADA
- PEN American Center
- PEN Canada
- PEN International
- Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
- South East European Network for Professionalization of Media
- Vigilance pour la Démocratie et l’État Civique
- World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
- World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Individuals:
Clive Stafford Smith OBE, Founder, Reprieve[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1482250766050-89540f7d-7e72-0″ taxonomies=”3368″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
20 Dec 16 | Mapping Media Freedom, News and features
Each week, Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project verifies threats, violations and limitations faced by the media throughout the European Union and neighbouring countries. Here are four recent reports that give us cause for concern.
11/12/2016 — A photographer for Kommersant newspaper was attacked by anti-LGBT protesters and then harassed by the police. David Frenkel was in St. Petersburg observing an LGBT rights protest and a counter-protest with demonstrators said to belong to the ultra-conservative People’s Liberation Movement (NOD).
Frenkel was attacked by a NOD protester who hit his camera and kicked him. The photographer requested help from nearby police officers but they ignored him. He then phoned the police who arrived at the scene but did not protect him. Instead, the counter-protesters claimed the journalists were disrupting their protest and the officers took Frenkel to the police station along with the demonstrator who attacked him.
Frenkel was accused at the police station of “disrespecting the state and the police”. An officer refused to process his assault complaint against the demonstrator and threatened to report him as mentally ill.
Doctors arrived in an ambulance shortly after, attempting to remove the journalist, which he resisted. The doctors then took the bag containing Frenkel’s camera to which he said, “You have to kill me before you take this bag,” when the doctors replied, “No problem”.
As Frenkel screamed and called for help, surrounding officers took videos of him and laughed. The doctors removed him from the room so he was no longer under surveillance cameras when one started strangling him and the other began tying his hands in a tourniquet.
Frenkel said in a Facebook post, “While doing this, doctors, police officers, and the NOD representative were laughing about me being Jewish; they mocked something about Seder and circumcision…”
Frenkel was released a short time later. Kommersant filed a complaint with the Russian Investigative Committee, demanding an investigation.
10/12/2016 — Taulant Balla, MP for the ruling socialist party in Albania, has suggested changes to the country’s electoral code would would force registration for all online media outlets and give permission to the government to ban all unregistered outlets.
The outlets would have to register under a Media Monitoring Board, which is a temporary body created by the Central Electoral Commission to monitor the TV time allocated to candidates during a campaign. If these outlets were to fall under “electoral propaganda” during elections, then they would be forced to close down.
The proposal states that, “State authorities take measures to close during the election campaign unregistered web outlets who distribute electoral propaganda, carry out polls disregarding the electoral code or go beyond limits of information and are deemed electoral propaganda.”
12/12/2016 — A representative of the British Journalists Union, Alexander McDonald, was denied a visa to enter Turkey to cover the court cases of Evensrel reporters.
McDonald received an email saying his visa was denied but was given no reason. Without the visa, McDonald will not be able to cover the cases against journalists Cemil Ugur and Halil Ibrahim Polat. Since McDonald has been denied, the journalists have been released. They were originally detained for “armed terrorist propaganda” and “membership of an armed terrorist organisation”.
12/12/2016 — Several non-state news outlets reported interruptions to their services and have noticed them occurring for the past several weeks. Since 28 November access to the websites for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America was blocked repeatedly.
Meydan.tv and another news outlet based in Berlin experienced the same problems between 28 November and 2 December.
Click on the bubbles to view reports or double-click to zoom in on specific regions. The full site can be accessed at https://mappingmediafreedom.org/
29 Nov 16 | Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured, Index Reports, Press Releases
An unprecedented series of crackdowns on media professionals and news outlets took place in Europe and neighbouring countries during the third quarter of 2016, recorded by Index on Censorship’s Mapping Media Freedom project.
Between 1 July and 30 September MMF’s network of correspondents, partners and other sources submitted a total of 406 verified reports of threats to press freedom, a 19% rise from the second quarter of 2016.
An important factor in the rise in media violations was the attack on Turkey’s democratically-elected government on 15 July. Following the failed coup attempt, Turkish authorities forced more than 2,500 journalists out of their jobs, arrested and prosecuted 98 under trumped-up criminal charges, detained 133 and seized or shut down 133 media outlets. The post-coup environment in the country is explored in an extensive case study.
“The post-coup situation for media freedom in Turkey is dire. The sheer number of journalists arrested, detained and charged is without precedent in Europe. At the same time the reports collected by the map are pointing to other areas of concern in Russia and Ukraine,” Hannah Machlin, Mapping Media Freedom project officer, said.
Key findings from the third quarter 2016 report:
- Four journalists were killed: Two in Ukraine, one in Russia and one in Turkey
“With nine out of every 10 murders of journalists never solved, the vicious cycle of impunity still prevails. It has to be broken. There can be no exception to the very basic rule that all attacks on journalists must be investigated quickly and thoroughly. We should never give up the fight for journalists’ safety and the struggle to end impunity for crimes committed against journalists,” Dunja Mijatović, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, said.
- 54 incidents of physical assault were reported
- 107 media professionals were arrested; 150 were detained and released
- 112 reports of intimidation, which includes psychological abuse, sexual harassment, trolling/cyberbullying and defamation, were made
“Reporters Without Borders is deeply concerned by the many cases of the use of violent intimidation tactics to silence journalists over the past few months. Acts of violence, and impunity for these acts, has a serious chilling effect on freedom of expression and freedom of information. The increasing use of violence to silence critical voices is part of a global trend of deteriorating press freedom, which must be addressed as a matter of urgent priority”, said Rebecca Vincent, UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
- Journalistic work was censored or altered 29 times
- Media professionals were blocked from covering a story in 89 cases.
The report is available in web and pdf formats.
For more information, please contact Hannah Machlin, Mapping Media Freedom project officer at [email protected]
About Mapping Media Freedom
Mapping Media Freedom – a joint undertaking with the European Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, partially funded by the European Commission – covers 42 countries, including all EU member states, plus Bosnia, Iceland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, Albania along with Ukraine, Belarus and Russia in (added in April 2015), and Azerbaijan (added in February 2016). The platform was launched in May 2014 and has recorded over 2,500 incidents threatening media freedom.
28 Nov 16 | Bahrain, Bahrain Letters, Campaigns, Campaigns -- Featured
On 29 November Faisal Hayyat was sentenced to 3 months in prison
To: Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa
King of Bahrain
CC :
Hon. Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein
High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mr. John F. Kerry
United States Secretary of State
Frederica Mogherini
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
The Right Honorable Boris Johnson
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
King Hamad,
We, the undersigned, express our deep concern with the Government of Bahrain’s campaign targeting journalists and activists exercising their right to free expression. On 9 October 2016, the Public Prosecution charged Faisal Hayyat, a sports journalist and social media activist, with insulting a sect and a religious figure. The government’s repeated harassment of Faisal and other online activists demonstrate the ongoing criminalization of free expression in Bahrain.
Faisal Hayyat is a renowned journalist and has appeared on various sports channels and has written for local Bahraini newspapers, Alalam, Albilad, and Akhbar Al Khaleej. He directs and presents short video programs online that provide critical perspectives on local politics.
Bahraini officials previously arrested Faisal in April 2011 for his involvement in the 2011 pro-democracy protests. The Bahraini security forces detained him for 84 days. During his detainment, authorities subjected Faisal to physical and psychological torture, including sexual harassment and degrading treatment. He has been vocal about this and recently published a letter on social media to the Bahraini Minister of Interior detailing the torture to which the government had subjected him. Government authorities never provided compensation for the abuse and never held any officials accountable. In the letter Faisal mentions, “I write this and I know it may cost me my freedom.”
On 7 October, Faisal published tweets commenting on events from early Islamic history. Two days later, Faisal was arrested and charged with “insulting a sect.” The government is therefore treating Faisal Hayyat’s opinion on events of Islamic history as a criminal liability. The government’s decision to prosecute him infringes both his freedom of expression and religion.
The undersigned NGOs believe Faisal has been targeted as part of a silencing campaign against critical voices of the government. Recently, the Bahraini government has brought further criminal charges against human rights defender Nabeel Rajab for an open letter published in the New York Times, and against political opposition leader Ebrahim Sharif for an interview he gave with the Associated Press. Furthermore, the opposition politician Fedhel Abbas received three years in prison for tweets criticizing the war in Yemen.
We, therefore, call on the authorities to respect Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which mandates that “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression.” The Bahraini government must also respect Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which mandates that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontier.”
As organisations concerned with the right to freedom of expression, we call on the Government of Bahrain to:
■ Immediately and unconditionally release Faisal Hayyat, Nabeel Rajab, and all internet users arrested and imprisoned for merely exercising their right to freedom of expression; and
■ Abide by international human rights standards, including the ICCPR and UDHR, by upholding the right to freedom of expression without any restrictions.
Signed,
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain
Adil Soz – International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech
Afghanistan Journalists Center
Africa Freedom of Information Centre
Albanian Media Institute
ARTICLE 19
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Bytes for All
Cambodian Center for Human Rights
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Center for Independent Journalism – Romania
Centre for Independent Journalism – Malaysia
Freedom Forum
Freedom House
Free Media Movement
Gulf Centre for Human Rights
Human Rights Network for Journalists – Uganda
Hungarian Civil Liberties Union
Independent Journalism Center – Moldova
Index on Censorship
Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety
Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information
International Federation of Journalists
International Press Centre
International Press Institute
Maharat Foundation
MARCH
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
Media Institute of Southern Africa
Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms – MADA
PEN American Center
PEN International
Reporters Without Borders
Social Media Exchange – SMEX
South East European Network for Professionalization of Media
Vigilance pour la Démocratie et l’État Civique
World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters – AMARC
World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bahrain Press Association (BPA)
Burundi Child Rights Coalition
English PEN
European – Bahraini Organisation for Human Rights (EBOHR)
European Center for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED)
Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
Union de Jeunes pour la Paix et le Developpement
