17 Feb 11 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Four people have been killed in anti-government demonstrations in Manama. Without warning, police launched the crackdown at around 3.00 am (12am GMT) on Thursday, leaving up to 95 protesters injured. Earlier in the week a man was killed at the funeral procession of a person who died in the protests the day before.
04 Nov 10 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Ali Abdulemam’s trial is an important test case for free speech in the Middle East. Ashraf Khalil explains why
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04 Nov 10 | Uncategorized
The tight-knit world of Middle East bloggers and electronic activists is rallying forcefully around the case of Ali Abdulemam, a prominent Bahraini blogger and online activist, who was arrested in September as part of a wide-ranging crackdown on human rights activists and representatives of the country’s disenfranchised Shia Muslim majority.
The Shia activists are charged with being part of a “sophisticated terrorist network” aiming to overthrow the government, but the exact charges against Abdulemam are murkier and harder to unravel. He is charged with “spreading false news” through his popular portal, Bahrainonline.org.
A married father of three and an IT consultant by day, Adbulemam has become a fixture over the past decade in forums and conferences dedicated to Arab digital activism and online freedom. He is regarded as one of the region’s web pioneers, and is described by one of his defenders as “driven by his passion for effecting change” in Bahrain and the wider Arab world.
In 2002 Abdulemam made waves by abandoning a pseudonym and publishing under his own name. Three years later he was jailed for charges that included fomenting hatred of the government. He later told the Wall Street Journal, “I believed you could speak and not go to jail.”
His latest trial started last week under heavy security and tight restrictions on local journalists covering the proceedings. A vibrant online campaign has sprung up in his defence.
Abdulemam is a Shia Muslim, described by friends as generally secular. An estimated 70 per cent of Bahrain’s 530,000 citizens are Shias, but the country is completely controlled by its Sunni royal family. The tiny island kingdom remains a close ally of the USA and serves as a host and staging point for the US Navy’s 5th Fleet. As a result, it has been given a largely free hand to roll back democratic freedoms that once set it apart from other Persian Gulf nations.
In parliamentary elections last week, Shias held onto their bloc of 18 seats in the 40-member chamber but are not expected to gain enough allies for a majority. And even if they did, control of the largely powerless assembly would be purely symbolic, and would do little to change the way the country works.
08 Sep 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Blogger, author and founder of Bahrain’s BahrainOnline forum, Ali Abdulemam was arrested on 4 September by Bahraini authorities for allegedly spreading “false news” on the BahrainOnline.org portal. On the afternoon of 5 September, BahrainOnline was shut down for good, by the authorities. A crackdown on media began in Bahrain on 13 August.
