Boris Johnson urged to question Bahrain ambassador about press freedom

Campaigning groups send open letter to the foreign secretary complaining about the human rights record of Bahrain’s envoy to Britain

‘); hiddenDoc.close(); })(); {“uid”:2,”hostPeerName”:”https://www.theguardian.com”,”initialGeometry”:”{\”windowCoords_t\”:0,\”windowCoords_r\”:1366,\”windowCoords_b\”:768,\”windowCoords_l\”:0,\”frameCoords_t\”:1867.234375,\”frameCoords_r\”:913,\”frameCoords_b\”:2117.234375,\”frameCoords_l\”:613,\”styleZIndex\”:\”auto\”,\”allowedExpansion_t\”:0,\”allowedExpansion_r\”:0,\”allowedExpansion_b\”:0,\”allowedExpansion_l\”:0,\”xInView\”:0,\”yInView\”:0}”,”permissions”:”{\”expandByOverlay\”:true,\”expandByPush\”:false,\”readCookie\”:false,\”writeCookie\”:false}”,”metadata”:”{\”shared\”:{\”sf_ver\”:\”1-0-4\”,\”ck_on\”:1,\”flash_ver\”:\”22.0.0\”}}”,”reportCreativeGeometry”:false,”isDifferentSourceWindow”:false}” scrolling=”no” marginwidth=”0″ marginheight=”0″ width=”300″ height=”250″ data-is-safeframe=”true” style=”border: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;”>

It urges Johnson to “raise these issues surrounding Sheikh Fawaz’s past and current involvement in the violations of press freedom with the government of Bahrain.”

The letter cites Bahrain’s fall in RSB’s press freedom index ranking during Fawaz’s IAA presidency. In 2009, the year before he took over, it was 119th. By the time he left, in 2012, it was 165th.

When Fawaz presented his ambassadorial credentials to the Queen in December 2015 he spoke of the shared commitment of the two governments in fighting the global scourge of terrorism.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, BIRD’s director of advocacy, said: “The role of this ambassador in actively repressing free journalists and media… must be investigated… If the UK is serious about supporting free press globally, they must address this with their ally, Bahrain.”

Updated at 5.30pm: The Bahraini embassy issued a statement at 5pm in which it said that the letter sent by the press freedom groups was “littered with clear fabrications, inaccuracies and innuendo.”

It stated: “The claim that Sheikh Fawaz bin Mohamed Al-Khalifa, as the president of the IAA, was involved in abusing a journalist is ludicrous.”

The newspaper Al Wasat “was indeed suspended in 2011, for a single day, following allegations it had attempted to mislead readers by passing off unrelated local footage as current local events – a point the paper’s own board accepted.

“The case of Nazeeha Saeed – which appears to have resulted from her own failure to renew the appropriate credentials as a foreign correspondent – is very recent, and well after the time that the ambassador was at the IAA.”

The embassy’s response continued: “What is clear, however, is that the IAA never attempted to ‘crack down’ on media freedoms. Indeed, Bahrain’s government is committed to a diverse and vibrant media sector in which all parts of society can make their voice heard, even in the face of the current international challenges, and efforts by certain regional actors to stoke sectarian tensions.”

And it concluded: “Bahrain’s commitment to media freedom is fully consistent with the values we share with the United Kingdom, and indeed with the ambassador’s own views on the issue… During the ambassador’s time at the IAA he actually abolished the department responsible for media censorship.”