Post by Omar on Aug 12, 2013 9:47:33 GMT 4
Bahrain is about to experience another round of large countrywide protests and chances are, you might not hear about them.
A tiny island nation, Bahrain sits near Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf and is important to US interests in the region because it hosts the Navy's Fifth Fleet, responsible for patrolling the oil-rich region's waters.
On August 14, protesters have promised to take to the streets once more to demand democratic reform in the latest installment of a two-year long protest movement. The response of the government of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa to the protest wave has been repression, and the government has made it almost impossible for foreign reporters to cover the turmoil.
This has forced Bahraini citizen journalists to cover their own protests for the outside world and they've succeeded - until now.
With August 14 quickly approaching, citizen journalists are the government's new targets. A week ago, I spoke online with a citizen journalist inside Bahrain who told me his arrest might be imminent because he feared a crackdown had begun against him and his colleagues. He had good reason to worry. At 3 am on July 31, fifteen masked men woke up Bahraini blogger Mohammed Hassan in his house and arrested him.
His computer, camera, phone and every other electronic item found in his room were also confiscated. The young blogger's family was only told that he was "wanted." On Friday, after his lawyer AbdulAziz Mosa tweeted about evidence that Hassan had been beaten in detention, Mr. Mosa was arrested.
A tiny island nation, Bahrain sits near Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf and is important to US interests in the region because it hosts the Navy's Fifth Fleet, responsible for patrolling the oil-rich region's waters.
On August 14, protesters have promised to take to the streets once more to demand democratic reform in the latest installment of a two-year long protest movement. The response of the government of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa to the protest wave has been repression, and the government has made it almost impossible for foreign reporters to cover the turmoil.
This has forced Bahraini citizen journalists to cover their own protests for the outside world and they've succeeded - until now.
With August 14 quickly approaching, citizen journalists are the government's new targets. A week ago, I spoke online with a citizen journalist inside Bahrain who told me his arrest might be imminent because he feared a crackdown had begun against him and his colleagues. He had good reason to worry. At 3 am on July 31, fifteen masked men woke up Bahraini blogger Mohammed Hassan in his house and arrested him.
His computer, camera, phone and every other electronic item found in his room were also confiscated. The young blogger's family was only told that he was "wanted." On Friday, after his lawyer AbdulAziz Mosa tweeted about evidence that Hassan had been beaten in detention, Mr. Mosa was arrested.