Press charges against Al Jazeera, rights groups tell Bahrain Foreign Affairs Ministry

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbhahrain.com

Bahraini right organisations had called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to register a complaint against the Qatari Al Jazeera channel for deliberate attempts to tarnish Bahrain’s reputation.

The right organisations rejected and termed the accusation aired by the channel as “continuing hostility that contradicts with the basic law and statute of the Cooperation Council for the Arab Gulf states.” The five rights groups also called for establishing a “joint complaints committee” within the Gulf Cooperation Council to deal with such cases.

The committee should be authorised to receive complaints on any political of legal violations between countries and settle matters through mediation.

Bahrain Jurists Association, the Bahrain Society for Human Rights Watch, the Society for Human Rights Principles, the Observatory Society for Human Rights, and the Ma’an Association for Human Rights made the request.

The rights group told the ministry that the channel is working to tarnish Bahrain, which is an unacceptable act of hostility. “While Article 115 of the Qatari Penal Code criminalises such acts against the State of Qatar, Al Jazeera’s work represents a strange contradiction of the spirit of Article 138 of the same law that prohibits insulting other countries,” the right groups pointed out.

The rights officials also praised the directive of His Highness the Crown Prince and Prime Minister for establishing open prisons, which prepares the convicts, detainees and inmates for the lives they will accept after the end of their sentences.