21 Nov 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns -- Featured, Statements
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Fifteen rights groups have written to 11 states and the European Union on 21 November 2017 calling for action ahead of the conclusion of Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab’s appeal against his two-year sentence for stating that Bahrain bars reporters and human rights workers from entry into the country.
In the letters, which are addressed to the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, as well as Germany, Ireland, France, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and Canada, the rights groups ask the states “to urgently raise, both publicly and privately, the case of Nabeel Rajab, one of the Gulf’s most prominent human rights defenders.” The letter further urges governments to support Rajab “by condemning his sentencing and calling for his immediate and unconditional release, and for all outstanding charges against him to be dropped.”
On 22 November 2017 Mr Rajab is expecting the conclusion of his appeal against a two-year prison sentence. Rajab was sentenced on 10 July 2017 on charges of “publishing and broadcasting fake news that undermines the prestige of the state” under article 134 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, in relation to his statement to journalists that the Bahraini government bars reporters and human rights workers from entering the country. In a previous appeal court hearing earlier this month, the judge refused to allow the defence’s evidence, including testimonies of journalists and researchers who had been banned from entering Bahrain.
The human rights defender, who is President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), has been detained since his arrest on 13 June 2016. He was held largely in solitary confinement in the first nine months of his detention, violating the UN Standard Minimum Rules for Non-Custodial Measures (Tokyo Rules).
Rajab faces up to a further 15 years in prison on a second set of charges related to comments he made on Twitter criticising the Saudi-led war in Yemen and exposing torture in Bahrain. His 18th court hearing will be held on 31 December 2017. In September, the Public Prosecution brought new charges against related to social media posts made while he was already in detention; he has also been charged with “spreading false news” in relation to his letter from a Bahraini jail published in the New York Times.
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“The ongoing judicial harassment of Nabeel Rajab is a gross injustice. Nabeel is a man of peace who seeks democratic reforms for his country. His persecution for expressing his opinions — something taken for granted in many nations — must not stand. We call on Bahrain to recognise international human rights norms by releasing Nabeel and ending its prosecution of him.” — Jodie Ginsberg, CEO, Index on Censorship
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Rajab was transferred to Jau Prison on 25 October 2017. He was subjected to humiliating treatment on arrival, when guards immediately searched him in a degrading manner and shaved his hair by force. Prison authorities have singled him out by confiscating his books, toiletries and clothes, and raiding his cell at night. Rajab is isolated from other prisoners convicted for speech-related crimes and is instead detained in a three-by-three metre cell with five inmates.
Campaigners today protested outside the Bahrain embassy in London to call on the Bahraini regime to release Nabeel Rajab and end reprisal attacks against the family of Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, a prominent UK-based human rights campaigner living in exile from Bahrain, who is Director of Advocacy at the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Director of Advocacy, Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy: “Nabeel Rajab has been imprisoned for exposing injustice in Bahrain. Three of my own family members have been imprisoned and tortured for my human rights campaigning. The Bahraini government pursues a pattern of revenge tactics against human rights defenders, but we will not rest until they are freed. If the UK government cares for the rights of Bahraini people, then it must tell its repressive ally that this violent campaign to silence us is unacceptable.”
The 15 rights groups are:
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
FIDH within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Front Line Defenders
Global Legal Action Network
Gulf Centre for Human Rights
IFEX
Index on Censorship
International Service for Human Rights
PEN International
Reporters Without Borders
World Organisation Against Torture within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
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21 Nov 17 | About Index
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship joins with a coalition of organisations to write to governments about the ongoing judicial harassment of 2012 Freedom of Expression Award-winner Nabeel Rajab.
Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab
We write to ask you to urgently raise, both publicly and privately, the case of Nabeel Rajab, one of the Gulf’s most prominent human rights defenders, who on 22 November 2017 is expecting the conclusion of his appeal against a two-year prison sentence for stating that Bahrain bars reporters and human rights workers from entry into the country. We urge your government to support Mr Rajab by condemning his sentencing and calling for his immediate and unconditional release, and for all outstanding charges against him to be dropped.
The Bahraini government is clearly setting out to prosecute and punish Mr Rajab for his human rights work, doing so in violation of both the principles of a fair trial and the right to freedom of expression. The targeting of Mr Rajab for his work and comments reflects the dangerous situation for human rights defenders in Bahrain. Silence over reprisals against individuals exercising their right to free expression emboldens the Government of Bahrain to pursue further reprisals. Mr Rajab is one of many Bahraini human rights defenders who have suffered reprisals in 2017. Human rights defender Ebtisam al-Sayegh was tortured and sexually assaulted by the National Security Agency in May and arrested for her work in July; since released from jail, she faces anti-terrorism charges. Three family members of UK-based campaigner Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei were arrested, tortured and sentenced to three years in prison in October.
Mr Rajab, who is President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Founding Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Deputy Secretary General of FIDH, has been detained since his arrest on 13 June 2016. He was held largely in solitary confinement in the first nine months of his detention, violating the UN Standard Minimum Rules for Non-Custodial Measures (Tokyo Rules) which state: “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 human rights defender was transferred to Jau Prison on 25 October 2017, having been hospitalised since April after a serious deterioration of his health resulting from the authorities’ denial of adequate medical care and unhygienic conditions of detention.
Mr Rajab was subjected to humiliating treatment on arrival at Jau Prison, when guards immediately searched him in a degrading manner and shaved his hair by force. Prison authorities have singled him out by confiscating his books, toiletries and clothes, and raiding his cell at night. Mr Rajab is isolated from other prisoners convicted for speech-related crimes and is instead detained in a three-by-three meter cell with five inmates, among them convicted Daesh affiliates. Prison officers have threatened him with punishment if he speaks with other inmates, and he is not allowed out of his cell for more than one hour a day. One of Mr Rajab’s outstanding charges is that he spoke out about the degrading treatment in Jau Prison. The evidence he and BCHR gathered proving torture in the prison was exposed in a joint-NGO report, Inside Jau, in 2015. Human Rights Watch also reported on the same incidents of torture.
Mr Rajab’s two-year sentencing on 10 July 2017 was on charges of “publishing and broadcasting false news that undermines the prestige of the state” under article 134 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, in relation to his statement to journalists that the Bahraini government bars reporters and human rights workers from entering the country. The Lower Criminal Court held nine hearings during Mr Rajab’s hospitalisation which he was unable to attend. His appeal began in September; on 8 November, Mr Rajab’s lawyers disputed the charge by submitting video evidence of journalists and researchers being denied entry into Bahrain, however the court, led by Judge Bader al-Abdulla, refused to allow the evidence in court.
Mr Rajab had a separate hearing on 19 November 2017 in a concurrent case relating to his tweets about torture in Bahrain’s notorious Jau Prison and the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, for which he faces up to 15 additional years in prison. The court heard a prosecution witness, who had already appeared in a previous hearing last year, and who was not able to provide any evidence against Mr Rajab. The trial was adjourned to 31 December 2017, when the security officer who confiscated Mr Rajab’s electronic devices for another case will be brought as a prosecution witness. We, the undersigned organisations, consider that the long-running trial – the next court hearing will be the eighteenth since the trial began – is a reprisal against Mr Rajab’s expression. Mr Rajab also has been charged with “spreading false news” in relation to a letter he wrote to the New York Times in September 2016. A new set of charges were brought against Mr Rajab in September 2017 in relation to social media posts made in January 2017, when he was already in detention and without internet access.
In June 2017, United Nations human rights experts condemned the “sharp deterioration of the human rights situation” in Bahrain. This deterioration has included executions, unlawful killing of protesters and new reprisals against human rights defenders. In September 2017, the UN condemned the increasing number of Bahraini human rights defenders facing reprisals, naming nine affected individuals, Mr Rajab among them. The UN Committee Against Torture has called for Mr Rajab’s release.
We therefore urge your government to call on Bahrain to: immediately release Mr Rajab ahead of the final verdict on 22 November 2017 regarding his appeal against a two-year prison sentence; drop all charges against him; and undertake prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigations into the allegations of ill-treatment. The findings of the investigation must be made public and anyone suspected of criminal responsibility must be brought to justice in fair proceedings. As this case is a part of a pattern of abuse and harassment against human rights defenders in Bahrain, we urge you to call on Bahrain to cease all harassment of human rights defenders and to ensure the full respect of the right to freedom of expression.
Yours sincerely,
Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain
Bahrain Center for Human Rights
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
FIDH within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Front Line Defenders
Global Legal Action Network
Gulf Centre for Human Rights
IFEX
Index on Censorship
International Service for Human Rights
PEN International
Reporters Without Borders
World Organisation Against Torture within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
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18 Jul 17 | Digital Freedom, News and features, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
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Al Jazeera Broadcast Center in Doha, Qatar
A debate at the Frontline Club last night on the future of Al Jazeera and media freedom in the Middle East, following recent calls for the closure of the television network by a group of seven Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia, did not go to plan.
The original chair, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, pulled out of the debate and was replaced by Safa Al Ahmad, a Saudi journalist and filmmaker and the winner of the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Journalism.
According to Arab News, sources within the BBC said Gardner’s decision was because the event was deemed “a propaganda stunt by Qatar and Al Jazeera with no attempt at balance on the panel”. In an email to Arab News, the BBC source allegedly criticised the failure “to invite anyone from the UAE, Saudi, Bahrain or Egypt onto the panel in time”.
A group of 12-15 protesters outside the Frontline Club could be heard during the debate. They chanted, among other things: “Ban Al Jazeera.” They carried Egyptian flags and signs reading: “Al Jazeera Promotes Terrorism.”
This anger was matched inside as audience members aired various grievances, including complaints about the network’s editorial line, its ties to and funding from the state of Qatar, Al Jazeera Arabic’s alleged sectarianism and anti-Shia bias and the treatment of Al Jazeera staff. Some audience members openly supported the calls to ban Al Jazeera.
“Al Jazeera is media prostitution by Qatar,” an audience member shouted at the panel, echoing a protester outside who added that the network wanted to “destroy the Middle East”.
Journalist Ben Flanagan from Arab News, an English-language newspaper published in Saudi Arabia and owned by a member of the House of Saud, put it to the panel that Al Jazeera “has been used as a platform for terrorists and extremists” and asked panelists Giles Trendle, managing director of Al Jazeera English, and Wad Khanfar, the ex-director general of Al Jazeera Media Network: “Do you feel you have blood on your hands?”
During his opening statement, Trendle said: “We are funded by the state of Qatar but we maintain an editorial independence, so there isn’t a lot of direct communication with the channel.”
Khanfar said that while Qatar “is not a charitable organisation”, “the reputation of Al Jazeera and the popularity of Al Jazeera prevented the state of Qatar from using Al Jazeera and they created a healthy distance between us at that time as an editorial newsroom and the state.”
Concerns over the treatment of staff at Al Jazeera almost certainly weren’t eased when Khanfar told Flanagan that if he worked for Khanfar at Al Jazeera he would be fired if he had any objections to interviewing a controversial figure like Osama bin Laden.
“Staff are leaving, but within any organisation there is a certain churn rate,” Trendle later added. “People come and people go.”
At one point an audience member took to the aisle, interrupted Khanfar and shouted something about Al Jazeera’s failure to report on “American involvement” in the 2012 sarin gas attack in Damascus, a conspiracy theory originated by journalist Seymour Hersh and propagated on media outlets such as Alex Jones’ Infowars.
Al Jazeera isn’t the only news outlet Saudi-led coalition’s crosshairs. The London-based Middle East Eye is also on the list. Editor David Hearst, one of last night’s panellists, clarified that the news website is independently funded. “We’re not funded by Qatar,” he said. “If Qatar rolled over, it would have absolutely no effect on us.”
Hearst believes that the reason these Arab states – including Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE – are attacking certain media organisations is that “they are really dead scared of independent criticism or examination of what’s going on,” particularly when such criticism is in Arabic. “They don’t like their own people, Arabs, reading genuinely independent news, and that is what I think started this whole thing off.”
Hearst said that the reach of Al Jazeera, which has an audience 310 million households in more than 100 countries, makes the network, in particular, a threat.
Trendle gave assurances that despite the current pressure, Al Jazeera will not be shutting its doors and remains committed to “balanced, professional” journalism. “It’s kind of business as normal in an abnormal situation,” he said.
“As journalists, we all need to stand together in solidarity against this intimidation, against this bullying. We need to stand against being censored or silenced in any way at all,” Trendle added. “We all need to stand in unison as journalists because journalism is under attack, and in recent years it’s become much clearer that it is coming under attack in a very serious way from governments as well.”
Panellist Marc Owen Jones, a professor at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter University, while agreeing with Trendle, added that there needs to be a broader conversation about public service broadcasting.
“How can we have commercial media if it’s funded by weapons manufacturers? If we’re covering health case, we can’t have it funded by Big Pharma? You have to ask questions. Is it problematic to have media channels funded by non-democratic states or authoritarian states in the region if you want to really progress to another level of journalism?”
A proper debate is still to be had as Monday’s shouting match didn’t quite achieve its aim.
Index on Censorship re-iterates its position given by Index magazine editor Rachael Jolley in June: “Al Jazeera and press freedom must not be used as a bargaining chip.”[/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:1500396083270-89581cd9-54bd-6″ taxonomies=”449″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
23 Jun 17 | Bahrain, Bahrain Statements, Campaigns -- Featured, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Statements, United Arab Emirates
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The call by four Arab states — UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt — for Qatar to close news network Al Jazeera is clearly motivated by a desire to control the media in the region and silence reporting of stories that these governments would rather not see exposed.
Al Jazeera has brought the world news from the Arab Spring and many of the recent important moments from the region. Including the closure of Al Jazeera in a list of demands that Qatar “should” comply with to end a diplomatic crisis is about reducing media freedom in a region where it is already threatened.
“From its treatment of blogger Raif Badawi to its tightly controlled media environment, the Saudi authorities must not be able to dictate access to information for the public in other countries. Al Jazeera and press freedom must not be used as a bargaining chip,” Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship said.
None of the nations involved have a free independent media. Bahrain regularly targets critics, journalists and the one remaining opposition newspaper in the country, Al Wasat. Saudi Arabia sentenced blogger Raif Badawi to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes for his “criminal” writings. Egypt has regularly tried journalists on accusations of terrorism. The UAE, too, curtails discussion of its domestic policies. UAE Federal Law No. 15 of 1980 for Printed Matter and Publications regulates all aspects of the media and is considered one of the most restrictive press laws in the Arab world, according to Freedom House. Reporters Without Borders ranks them all below 118, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain all below 160 out of the 180 nations it covers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1498231474147-ef0d779a-68d3-0″ taxonomies=”9044″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
