Canadian company to censor Bahrain’s internet

Netsweeper, a Canadian company, has offered to provide the Bahraini government with internet censorship technology. In exchange for $1,175,000, the company will supply the Bahraini government with a “national website filtering solution.” Netsweeper has been involved in a number of questionable partnerships in recent years. Last year, researchers criticized the company for providing the Houthi[…]

Concern for Activist Fadhel Radhi if He Is Sent Back to Bahrain

Bahrain has demanded that the International Criminal Police Commission take steps to extradite activist Fadhel Radhi back to Bahrain. Armenian authorities detained Radhi on 1 January 2016 following his escape from Bahrain, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison for “political and arbitrary” reasons. A number of human rights organizations issued a statement[…]

Dispatch: Bahrain Newspapers Sign Restrictive “Charter of Press Ethics”

On 2 December 2015, the Government of Bahrain announced that the editors-in-chief of Bahrain’s six daily newspapers had reviewed and agreed to a new “Charter of Press Ethics” with the Ministry of Information Affairs Authority (IAA). Spearheaded by the Information and Parliamentary Affairs (IPA) Ministry, IPA Minister Isa bin Abdulrahman Al Hammadi stressed that the[…]

NGOs Condemn Death Sentences in Bahrain After Record Year

 8 January 2016 — Bahraini and international NGOs strongly condemn the repeated use of the death penalty by Bahraini authorities and call for the government to commute the death and life sentences. On 31 Demember 2015, Bahrain’s Fourth Criminal Court sentenced a man to death and 22 others to life imprisonment, bringing the total number[…]

Champions for Justice: Victims of Government Reprisals

Since Bahrain’s pro-democracy uprising began in 2011, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB), the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), and the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) have documented numerous cases of government retaliation against human rights defenders and activists. Less well-known, however, are cases of retaliation against these individuals’[…]