Alternative punishment for psychiatrist convicted of defamation, spreading false news

The High Court of Appeal has decided to substitute the one-year imprisonment previously issued against a Bahraini female psychiatrist to one year of community service, Tribune has learnt. This came after the woman appealed against the verdict, which also obliged her to pay a BD200 fine, after being convicted of defamation and spreading false news. As reported earlier, the psychiatrist stirred a countrywide debate last year on alleged drugs abuse and sexual activities in public girls’ school.

She made headlines and became the most trending discussion online, after she broadcast an interview with a seventh grader who was allegedly expelled from Hamad Town Intermediate School for consuming and peddling prescription pills in school. The doctor’s 50-minute recording included serious revelations, accusations and claims of organised drug peddling and immoral activities among teenage girls in the school, alerting the highest authorities in the Kingdom to the case.

This included the formation of a high-level committee, as per the directives of the Prime Minister HRH Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, to probe the claimed incident. Several authorities also commented on the matter, including Education Ministry, Interior Ministry, the Public Prosecution and a number of lawmakers. A statement issued by the Public Prosecution earlier mentioned: “The use of social media to address this issue and discuss it in this way without resorting to the competent authorities to verify the authenticity of what has been raised, is in fact an act of abuse and contrary to the law, especially that it affected people’s reputation. “What the main accused (the psychiatrist) has committed by broadcasting the video and the dialogues included in it through her personal channel on social media networks is an action that’s contrary to the nature, traditions and values of her profession.

” During the conversation between the psychiatric, the expelled student and her family, several names of students accused of peddling drugs in the school and carrying out sexual activities in its restrooms, were mentioned, an act that’s considered as defamation as per the Bahraini laws.  In a different development, the same psychiatrist is facing charges in a different case, where she is accused of not reporting a rape crime to the authorities, instead she attempted to solve it herself.