Bahrain has violated the terms of its free trade agreement with the United States by failing to protect workers' rights, according to a US government investigation.
In a report published yesterday, the US Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (OTLA) found that trade unionists and leaders...
Blog archive: Bahrain
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21st December 2012
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1st December 2012Kuwaitis were out on the streets again yesterday – thousands of them protesting against corruption and calling for a boycott oftoday's election, while others were merely trying to catch a glimpse of Kim Kardashian, the ubiquitous American publicity-seeker. Judging by some of the "...
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27th November 2012Dining companions: The king of Bahrain visits Sandhurst Britain's top military academy, Sandhurst, held a banquet last week to honour its graduates from the Middle East. Prominent among the guests was King Hamad of Bahrain who once trained at Sandhurst (as did nine other members of...
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26th November 2012There was a time when government media in the Arab countries could publish dishonest or misleading reports and expect to get away with it. Readers inside the country, having little access to information from outside, would be none the wiser. That changed years ago with the arrival of satellite...
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23rd November 2012It is exactly one year today since the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) was published. The anniversary has brought a deluge of criticism from NGOs – all basically saying the government has done far too little during the last 12 months to implement the BICI's...
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8th November 2012Bahrain's decision to revoke the citizenship of 31 men – all of them reported to be Shia Muslims – is just one side of a discriminatory policy operated by the kingdom's Sunni rulers. The other side is that they readily grant citizenship to Sunni Muslims from a variety of...
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7th November 2012The authorities in Bahrain have issued a list of 31 people who are to be stripped of their citizenship in an apparent punishment for opposing the regime. The announcement, posted on the interior ministry's website earlier today, gave no specific reasons but the ministry said it was taking...
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1st November 2012The United States has now joined in the criticism of Bahrain's decision to ban all public gatherings. State Department spokesman Mark Toner began yesterday's daily media briefing with the following statement (which broadly echoes the British statement quoted here in a blog post ...
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31st October 2012Less than two weeks after attracting international derision by arresting four young men for "insulting" the king on Twitter, the government of Bahrain is digging itself into another hole – this time by imposing a blanket ban on demonstrations. A statement from the interior minister said...
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18th October 2012By arresting four young men for "misuse of social media" the Bahraini authorities have embarked on a battle that ultimately they are bound to lose. The four have been charged (in the words of the interior ministry) with "defaming public figures" – an apparent use of the royal...
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12th September 2012Opening the latest session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on Monday, Navi Pillay, the High Commissioner, gave a wide-ranging progress report which included a section on Bahrain. The human rights situation in Bahrain remains an issue of serious concern, she said, adding...
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4th April 2012Following the shooting of citizen journalist Ahmed Ismael Hassan in Bahrain, which I reported here at the weekend, the EAWorldView blog describes how the victim's family have been harassed by the authorities (scroll down to 1812 GMT). An EA correspondent recently visited...
