Regime officials have reportedly taken over the Facebook and Twitter pages of Rasad News, a major source of news about human rights violations in Bahrain, and are posting anti-protest and pro-regime material.
(RSF/IFEX) – 16 June 2011 – RSF round-up of recent developments in Bahrain, Yemen and Libya:
BAHRAIN
Regime officials have reportedly taken over the Facebook and Twitter pages of Rasad News, a major source of news about human rights violations in Bahrain, and are posting anti-protest and pro-regime material after the arrest on 9 June of Hussein Ali Makki, administrator of the pages. Rasad News has since opened a new Facebook page to continue its work.
PalTalk, an audio and video chat group that was becoming increasingly political, especially one chatroom called Bahrain Nation, has been blocked since the beginning of the month.
Access to a new anti-government news site, http://bahrainmirror.com , has been blocked since 5 June.
Ali Omid, administrator of an online forum arrested on 10 May, was released on 22 May but is still liable for prosecution.
Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, a member of parliament for the Al-Wefaq party and leading pro-democracy activist, was charged by a military court on 12 June with “calling openly for the overthrow of the ruling system, disseminating tendentious rumours and taking part in illegal gatherings.” He had been arrested on 2 May after warning of the possible arrests of opposition leaders in an interview with Al-Jazeera.
Hussein Al-Durazi, a sports reporter for the daily “Al-Ayam” arrested after a police summons in Riffa on 23 May, was freed on 2 June. The paper has reportedly dismissed him.
The trial of the editors of the newspaper “Al-Wasat” has been postponed until 19 June.
(. . .)
YEMEN
The regime’s Republican Guard seized 5,000 copies of the daily paper “Akhbar Al-Youm” at the Qahaza checkpoint in Sanaa on 12 June as they were on their way to the Taiz, Ibb and Dhamar provinces.
Security forces seized copies of the daily “Al-Oula” and the weekly “Al-Sharia in Sanaa” on 9 June, the ninth time “Al-Oula” had been seized since pro-democracy demonstrations began four months ago.
LIBYA
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release on 13 June of Al-Jazeera cameraman Kamel Al-Tallou, a Libyan-born British citizen arrested on 19 March near Zawiya with three other Al-Jazeera journalists – Tunisian Lotfi Al-Masoudi (freed on 31 March), Mauritanian Ahmad Val Ould Eddin (released on 11 April) and Iraqi-born Norwegian Ammar Al-Hamdan (freed on 14 April).
