Predators of Press Freedom: Bahrain - King Hamad Ben Aissa Al Khalifa

King Hamad Ben Aissa Al Khalifa, Bahrain

Since the start of the country's pro-democracy movement, the government has tried to control news about the protests and the excesses of police and troops. Foreign journalists have been arrested and deported, others have been unable to get entry visas and Bahrainis wanting to tell them what is happening have been threatened. Free-speech activists have been hounded and prosecuted, photographers, bloggers and netizens arrested (one of them dying in prison), journalists forced to resign from the main opposition paper and called before the state prosecutor, and printing any news about ongoing investigations by the military prosecutor banned for supposed national security reasons. The media blackout has been accompanied by a big regime propaganda campaign, through media it controls, against major protest leaders, who are dubbed traitors or terrorists. Hamad Ben Aissa Al Khalifa, as king of Bahrain, is responsible for all this violence and abuses.

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