Political Repression In Bahrain

From torture to fake news, this book lays out how the Bahrain regime has used political repression and violence to fight social movements.

Amid the extensive coverage of the Arab uprisings, the Gulf state of Bahrain has been almost forgotten. Fusing historical and contemporary analysis, Bahrain's Uprising seeks to fill this gap, examining the ongoing protests and state repression that continues today. Drawing on powerful testimonies, interviews, and conversations from those involved, this broad collection of writings by scholars and activists provides a rarely heard voice of the lived experience of Bahrainis, describing the way in which a sophisticated society, defined by a historical struggle, continues to hamper the efforts of the ruling elite to rebrand itself as a liberal monarchy.

Foreword : on the prelude to the 14 February uprising / Abdulhadi Khalaf -- Introduction. Bahrain's uprising : the struggle for democracy in the Gulf / Ala'a Shehabi and Marc Owen Jones -- Part one. Voices of the condemned. A trial of thoughts and ideas / Ibrahim Sharif -- God after ten o'clock / 'Ali Al Fallawi -- A room with a view : an eyewitness to the pearl uprising / Tony Mitchell -- Part two. Configuring dissent : charting movements, space, and self-representation in Bahrain. Shifting contours of activism and possibilities for justice in Bahrain / Luck G.G. Bhatia and Ala'a Shehabi -- The many afterlives of Lulu : the story of Bahrain's pearl roundabout / Amal Khalaf -- Tn Tn Ttn and torture in Bahrain : puncturing the spectacle of the 'Arab Spring' / John Horne -- Part three. Suppressing dissent in an acceptable manner : modes of repression, colonial legacies, and institutional violence. On the side of decency and democracy : the history of British-Bahraini relations and transnational contestation / Zoe Holman -- Rotten apples or rotten orchards : police deviance, brutality, and unaccountability in Bahrain / Marc Owen Jones -- Social media, surveillance, and cyberpolitics in the Bahrain uprising / Marc Owen Jones.

You are being lied to by people who don't even exist. Digital deception is the new face of information warfare. Social media has been weaponised by states and commercial entities alike, as bots and trolls proliferate and users are left to navigate an infodemic of fake news and disinformation. In the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East, where authoritarian regimes continue to innovate and adapt in the face of changing technology, online deception has reached new levels of audacity. From pro-Saudi entities that manipulate the tweets of the US president, to the activities of fake journalists and Western PR companies that whitewash human rights abuses, Marc Owen Jones' meticulous investigative research uncovers the full gamut of tactics used by Gulf regimes and their allies to deceive domestic and international audiences. In an age of global deception, this book charts the lengths bad actors will go to when seeking to impose their ideology and views on citizens around the world.

When an authoritarian regime collapses, what determines whether an opposition group will form a political party, be successful in mobilizing voters, and survive or dissolve as a group in subsequent years? Based on unique field research, this examines how legacies of authoritarian rule shaped the outcome of Egypt's 2011 founding elections.

The book is a study of political development in Bahrain during the first five years after its independence in 1971. It is based on field research done by the author as the first senior Fulbright scholar in that country. The book was banned in Bahrain for 30 years but was allowed to be published in Arabic in that country in 2006. The study focuses on the tribal structure of Bahraini society and the rule of a minority Sunni government by al-Khalifa family over a largely disenfranchised Shia majority. To examine the making of the new state, the book analyzes the nature and characteristics of the Bahraini tribal society, the educational system of modern Bahrain, the nature of the political system, and popular demands for participation in decision making. The book also examines the making of the new constitution, the first ever national election to both the Constitutional Assembly and the National Assembly, and the electoral campaigns and candidates. The book also discusses the restrictions on freedoms of speech and assembly, the denial of women the right to vote, the banning of political parties and the role of clubs as surrogate political gathering places, the exclusion of the Shia majority from the economic and political centers of power, and the absence of government accountability and transparency. The February 20ll popular uprising in Bahrain underscores some of the key challenges discussed in the book, especially the autocratic nature of the regime and the urgency of political reform for domestic stability.

Bahrain faces a long-running local dispute about the sharing of power and wealth. Politics have become increasingly polarized along sectarian lines, a trend exacerbated by outside actors. The government has taken some steps to address human rights abuses and to create new mechanisms for the oversight of the security services. However, the effect will depend on the political will invested in them. So far the indications are negative. There is still scope to find common ground between the different elements of Bahraini society in support of a constitutional monarchy, based on a revitalized social contract, not on sect-based power-sharing. There may now be an opportunity to develop a fresh GCC mediation effort in the context of discussions on greater GCC unity. The repression in Bahrain, a Western ally, complicates and hinders the efforts of the US and UK to sketch out a new policy towards a Middle East where demands for democracy have become increasingly vocal.

One of Foreign Policy's Best Five Books of 2013, chosen by Marc Lynch of The Middle East Channel Beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq and concluding with the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings, Frederic M. Wehrey investigates the roots of the Shi'a-Sunni divide now dominating the Persian Gulf's political landscape. Focusing on three Gulf states affected most by sectarian tensions—Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait—Wehrey identifies the factors that have exacerbated or tempered sectarianism, including domestic political institutions, the media, clerical establishments, and the contagion effect of external regional events, such as the Iraq war, the 2006 Lebanon conflict, the Arab uprisings, and Syria's civil war. In addition to his analysis, Wehrey builds a historical narrative of Shi'a activism in the Arab Gulf since 2003, linking regional events to the development of local Shi'a strategies and attitudes toward citizenship, political reform, and transnational identity. He finds that, while the Gulf Shi'a were inspired by their coreligionists in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon, they ultimately pursued greater rights through a nonsectarian, nationalist approach. He also discovers that sectarianism in the region has largely been the product of the institutional weaknesses of Gulf states, leading to excessive alarm by entrenched Sunni elites and calculated attempts by regimes to discredit Shi'a political actors as proxies for Iran, Iraq, or Lebanese Hizballah. Wehrey conducts interviews with nearly every major Shi'a leader, opinion shaper, and activist in the Gulf Arab states, as well as prominent Sunni voices, and consults diverse Arabic-language sources.

This volume provides a comparative analysis of media systems in the Arab world, based on criteria informed by the historical, political, social, and economic factors influencing a country’s media. Reaching beyond classical western media system typologies, Arab Media Systems brings together contributions from experts in the field of media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to provide valuable insights into the heterogeneity of this region’s media systems. It focuses on trends in government stances towards media, media ownership models, technological innovation, and the role of transnational mobility in shaping media structure and practices. Each chapter in the volume traces a specific country’s media – from Lebanon to Morocco – and assesses its media system in terms of historical roots, political and legal frameworks, media economy and ownership patterns, technology and infrastructure, and social factors (including diversity and equality in gender, age, ethnicities, religions, and languages). This book is a welcome contribution to the field of media studies, constituting the only edited collection in recent years to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of Arab media systems. As such, it will be of great use to students and scholars in media, journalism and communication studies, as well as political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in the MENA region.

Moss presents a new theoretical framework for explaining when anti-authoritarian diaspora movements emerge and become transnational agents of change.