Amnesty International has accused Bahrain and Kuwait of running "roughshod over people's privacy" in their use of surveillance technology during the coronavirus pandemic.
The human rights organisation carried out a detailed technical analysis of phone apps in seven Arab states plus France,...
Blog archive: Bahrain
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17th June 2020
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10th May 2020Indian citizens have begun returning home from Arab states in the Gulf as part of a massive operation to repatriate them. Migrant workers in the Gulf have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and many have been anxious to leave. Some nationalities have been able to do so...
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14th April 2020Arab states in the Gulf are reporting large numbers of new Covid-19 infections among migrant workers. ● In Bahrain, foreign labourers account for almost half the confirmed cases – more than 600 have tested positive. ● In Kuwait, 679 of the 1,300 confirmed cases are reported to be Indian...
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7th April 2020At least three countries in the Middle East are resorting to technology based around mobile phones in their efforts to halt the spread of coronavirus. The three – Bahrain, Israel and the UAE – are using it in different ways but the underlying principle is the same in each of them. Mobile phones...
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15th October 2018The disappearance and suspected murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is the latest in a long line of reasons for questioning Britain's relationship with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies. It's a relationship that has never been viewed with...
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26th January 2018The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya News channel has been fined £120,000 ($170,000) for "serious" breaches of Britain's broadcasting code. Yesterday's announcement came after Ofcom, which regulates broadcasting in the UK, upheld a complaint of "unjust or unfair treatment and unwarranted...
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31st August 2017Writing about conflicts in the Middle East for the New York Times yesterday, columnist Thomas Friedman talked of "the power that is lost to a society like Syria or Iraq that needs an iron fist to make its many into one, and when that fist is removed, how the society fractures into small shards"....
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11th August 2017Bahrain recently joined Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt in calling for the Qatari broadcaster, al-Jazeera, to be shut down. But a more obvious candidate for closure would surely be the Bahraini government's official mouthpiece, the misleadingly-named Bahrain News Agency (BNA). Whatever you...
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23rd June 2017Having placed Qatar under economic siege earlier this month – in a row that was triggered by a fake news report – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have now issued a formal list of demands. Qatar has been given 10 days to comply, or face unspecified consequences. The demands –...
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6th June 2017The extraordinary propaganda offensive against Qatar which has been raging in sections of the Arab media for the last couple of weeks shifted from words to deeds yesterday when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt in effect placed Qatar under siege. There are four possible outcomes...
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4th June 2017The day before unknown persons hacked a government website in Qatar, triggering a vicious media feud among Gulf states, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi was urging a former CIA director to give the Qataris "hell". On 23 May, a conservative think tank with strong Israeli connections held a...
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20th March 2017The Gulf's autocratic rulers have joined forces in denouncing Switzerland after it complained about human rights abuses in Bahrain. The row began last Tuesday when Switzerland's representative at the UN Human Rights Council made a brief statement expressing concern about five particular...
