14 Feb 12 | Middle East and North Africa
The Bahraini government spends thousands and thousands of dollars on PR companies every month. Their purpose of using such companies is simple: to project a positive image of Bahrain while also tempering any negative press coverage.
One such company is Qorvis, a Washington D.C. Based PR firm that receives a monthly stipend from the Bahraini government of 40,000 USD. They operate by attempting to influence journalists or opinion makers through the strategic placement of favourable reports defending the actions of the Bahrain government. Their methods range from circulating articles on outlets such as PR Newsire, to emailing journalists directly in order to defend the actions of the regime.
Some PR companies are also suspected of engaging in more clandestine activities, such as creating sock puppet accounts on Twitter to spread pro-regime propaganda. The revelation that BGR Gabara, yet another British PR firm reportedly working for Bahrain, planned to organise a Twitter campaign on behalf of Kazakh children exacerbated such concerns. Given that the US government are also involved in such sock puppetry, there is no reason the private sector won’t seek to profit from it.
Another dimension of PR work is minimising negative publicity. For example, the Guardian recently took down an article from its Comment is Free section after a British PR firm representing the Bahrain International Circuit made a complaint. The article, which Dragon Associates argued contained “considerable inaccuracies”, threatened to derail Bahrain’s plans to host the F1 Grand Prix this year. It has yet to be put back up, either in its original or altered form.
Perhaps the most worrying players in the murky world of PR are the likes of Olton, a British intelligence firm who officially have a contract with the Economic Development Board, but who also appear to work for Ministry of the Interior. As well as providing “reputation management”, their software is reported to be able to identify “ringleaders” through using social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Given that dozens of students were dismissed from university based on evidence garnered from their Facebook profiles, many are demanding to know who is doing the watching.
The threat posed by unscrupulous PR companies to freedom of speech should not be underestimated. It is bad enough that they distort the public sphere in exchange for money, yet it is the rise of companies like Olton that is the most alarming, for when does intelligence gathering become ‘evidence’ gathering? Furthermore, when does “reputation management” involve facilitating the silencing of those narratives that oppose the desired rhetoric of the paying client?
Marc Owen Jones is a blogger and PhD candidate at Durham University. He tweets at @marcowenjones
13 Feb 12 | Bahrain Letters, Middle East and North Africa
Prominent Bahraini human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja has been serving a life sentence since April 2011 for his involvement in anti-government protests last year. Al-Khawaja, who is also a Danish citizen, recently wrote a letter from prison to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to push for his release
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11 Feb 12 | Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
US Citizens Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath were arrested by Bahraini security forces in the capital Manama on Saturday (11 February) during a peaceful protest.
Protesters had marched into the city center to reestablish a presence of nonviolent, peaceful protest leading up to the 1-year anniversary of the Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain on 14 February.
Huwaida and Radhika are in Bahrain as part the <a href=”www.witnessbahrain.org”>Witness Bahrain initiative</a>, which arrived in Bahrain in response to a call by Bahraini democracy activists for international observers.
08 Feb 12 | Middle East and North Africa
Yesterday, Bahraini authorities denied visas to a number foreign journalists ahead of the anniversary of Bahrain’s 14 February uprising. Journalists from the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, Associated Foreign Press, and Al-Jazeera English were all denied visas “due to the high volume of applications”. Local activists expect a violent crackdown on 14 February, as protesters have vowed to return to the now closed Pearl Roundabout.
Among the journalists refused visas are Adam Ellick and the New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof. Ellick told Index that members of Bahrain’s media office had previously assured him that he would be able to “come back anytime”. This pledge was made during Ellick’s last trip in December 2011, during which both he and Kristof were were detained while reporting on protests.
Kristen Chick, a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor was also denied a visa yesterday. Like Kristof, she also reported from Bahrain during the crackdown.
On Twitter, the authority said it processed applications in the order that they were received, prioritising the earliest applications. The head of the Information Affairs Authority, Sheikh Fawaz, said that the government wanted to “[ensure] a wide range of international media here during this time”.
Last month, the Information Affairs Authority (IAA) sent Index a letter clarifying its stance on “media censorship,” boasting that 700 foreign journalists were allowed to enter the country to cover the Bahrain Air show. It is unclear how many journalists were allowed to enter the country to cover 14 February, but the IAA is insisting that they are allowing many foreign outlets to cover the anniversary of the uprisings. The IAA claim they have granted a number of foreign journalists visas to cover the anniversary, they named Voice of America, BBC, Reuters, Associated Press and Russia El Youm as major news sites allowed to enter the country to cover the anniversary of the uprisings in the tiny country.
Brian Dooley of Human Rights First, who was also denied a visa to enter the country in January, told the Los Angeles Times that “the government is only fuelling suspicions that they don’t want the rest of the world to see what’s going to happen”.
Maryam Al-Khawaja, Head of Foreign Affairs for the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights said that the denied visas were not “a good sign,” and added that it was “even more worrisome that NGOs are not being allowed in either”.
Last month, Dooley, Rick Sollom from Physicians for Human Rights and a delegation from Freedom House were all denied visas, and invited to return at the end of February. The e-mail denying visas to journalists also invited them to return at the end of February, when the “National Commissions work implementing the recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI)” would be completed.
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights anticipates an escalation in the protests on 14 February. Al-Khawaja said “high numbers of protesters will continuously attempt to access what was Pearl Square, and the government will use excessive violence to keep them out.”
