New Project to Track Govt Spin Campaign Shows Over $32M Spent on PR

BAHRAIN GOVT HIRES 18 WESTERN COMPANIES TO IMPROVE IMAGE AFTER UNREST
August 23, 2012 – Bahrain Watch

[Manama] The Government of Bahrain has spent or allocated at least US$ 32.5 million for the services of eighteen different London and Washington DC based companies, to improve its image in the Western media, since the start of pro-democracy protests last February. This according to a new project called PR Watch <http://bahrainwatch.org/PR> launched on Thursday by research and activist group Bahrain Watch. The ongoing goal of PR Watch is to monitor and document the activities of each public relations company working for Bahrain’s government.

When Arab Spring-inspired protesters took to Bahrain’s streets in February 2011, security forces responded with a bloody crackdown, killing two protesters in the first two days and over 60 to date in the ongoing unrest. Although coverage in the Western media was relatively limited, it shone a spotlight on the Government’s darker side: torture and police abuse, sectarian discrimination, and the concentration of political power in the ruling family and its allies. Its carefully-cultivated facade of tolerance and progressivism under threat, the government turned to an array of Western public relations (PR) and PR-related firms.

Using information primarily from media reports and official government documents, PR Watch uncovers how these companies have sought to transform the narrative about Bahrain in the Western media. The information is organized and presented on a website: . While PR Watch has identified eighteen different Western PR-related companies receiving payments or contracts worth at least $32.5 million since February 2011, these figures are based only on publicly-available information. Actual spending by the Bahraini government on PR is likely to be considerably higher.

Among the eighteen firms hired are some of the biggest names in Western PR, such as London-based Bell Pottinger, and Washington DC-based Qorvis Communications. Both have been previously criticised for PR contracts with other repressive governments.

In general, the activities undertaken by PR companies on behalf of the Bahraini government include:

While this is part and parcel of the regular PR trade, some companies, such as DC-based Policy Impact Communications, play a more dubious role. To skirt rules barring lobbyists from paying for US Congressional travel, Policy Impact established a non-profit front organization that funded a visit to Bahrain by Representative Dan Burton. The same group also organized a trip to Bahrain for Representative Eni Faleomavaega. Both Congressmen made statements in support of the government while in Bahrain, and upon their return to the US.

In general, activities by PR companies seek to promote the following myths about Bahrain’s political situation:

The country is not ruled by an autocrat, but by an enlightened monarchy shepherding its subjects towards democracy;

The opposition protesters are wolves in sheep’s clothing who may be calling for democracy, but are actually backed by Iran and want to impose a Shia theocracy;

Any violence carried out by security forces against protesters is always only in reaction to violence carried out by protesters, labelled as “terrorists” or “vandals”;

Torture and police abuse is not systematic, but is the result of just a few bad apples rather than the orders of any senior officials;

The government has made amends for any mistakes it made last year.

The findings of the PR Watch project directly contradict a statement made by Bahrain’s Minister of State for Information in July 2012, in which she characterized claims that the government has hired Western public relations companies as “one of the fabrications among the fabrications of the Opposition to tarnish the image of Bahrain.”

“That the Bahraini government is pouring so much money into Western PR firms suggests it cares more of its international image, than it does ending the ongoing human rights violations against its own citizens,” said Bahrain Watch member Marc Owen Jones. “PR companies protecting the image of the Bahraini government simply offer excuses to those who should be pressuring the Kingdom for reform, accountability and social justice.” …source

U.S government turns a blind eye to human rights violations in Bahrain: Nabeel Rajab jailed for three years over ’illegal gatherings’, but U.S reaction is delayed and weak
21 August, 2012 – International Federation for Human Rights

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) welcomes the U.S. State Department’s long overdue public statement last week in response to the Bahraini government’s sentencing of Nabeel Rajab, a prominent human rights defender, to three years in prison. However, the State Department’s call for “the verdict and sentence [to] be reconsidered in the appeals process” is a woefully insufficient response considering Nabeel’s predicament and the ongoing repression and human rights violations committed by the government of Bahrain.

Nabeel Rajab, one of several human rights defenders currently imprisoned and threatened in Bahrain, was condemned to 3 years in prison last Thursday for organizing and participating in peaceful marches. He is also scheduled appear in court this Thursday, August 23rd, to appeal another sentence of 3 months in prison for simply having Tweeted his criticism of his government. These charges not only violate Nabeel’s basic rights to freedom of expression and assembly, but Nabeel’s family and colleagues were denied access to his trial on August 16th, calling into question the fairness and transparency of the legal proceedings.

As a member of the Human Rights Council, which in July of this year passed a resolution reaffirming the right to freedom of expression “through any media of one’s choice” (A/HRC/RES/20/8), the United States has an even greater responsibility to uphold international human rights standards including the freedom of expression. Moreover, given that the United States is one of Bahrain’s closest military allies (approving continued arms sales to the Kingdom of Bahrain in May 2012 despite clear evidence of Bahraini security forces using excessive force against civilians), it is in a unique position to pressure Bahraini authorities to respect their citizens’ fundamental freedoms. Rather than doing so, the U.S. government has until today stayed silent on Nabeel Rajab’s ongoing harassment, and is still failing to publicly and clearly condemn what is without any doubt a violation of international human rights law.

FIDH calls on the U.S. government to publicly denounce the continued persecution of human rights defenders in Bahrain, and to insist on the immediate and unconditional release of Nabeel Rajab and all other prisoners of conscience. …source

Deafening Toll Of Nabeel Rajab’s Injustice
21 August, 2012 – The Trench

Three weeks ago Michael Posner, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, paid a visit to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission with a deceptive blueprint under his arm. In addition to his normal duties, Posner has served as Bahrain’s de facto ambassador throughout the island’s 18-month democratic uprising. The Secretary would employ a number of arguments to shield King Hamad Bin isa Al-Khalifa’s monarchy from Congressional scrutiny, weaving criticisms of the government’s repression between an overarching defense of its actions. His general conclusion: Bahrain may share some similarities with Syria, Libya or Tunisia, but each country’s “unique history” must “shape U.S. policy accordingly.”

As if local history is the only force dictating U.S. policy on and around the island.

King Hamad has certainly played some parts of his counterrevolutionary hand with skill. While his modest security forces are not equipped to cause the same destruction as Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad’s armies, Hamad and his royal circle could employ a variety of lethal tactics to break the opposition’s will to resist. Instead they have chosen pellet guns [shotguns] and U.S.-made tear gas canisters over automatic weapons as their primary instruments. Beatings, night arrests and other non-lethal tactics also keep the island’s casualties, international pressure and media exposure to a minimum. Applying lessons from Western crowd control tactics – including the so-called Free Speech Zones abused by the Bush administration – Hamad’s government even contracted Western police figures John Timoney and John Yates to add to his performance’s realism.

Yet the King’s circle is prone to lapses in strategic thinking, particularly the entry of Saudi Arabian forces (along with Jordanians and Pakistanis) and the destruction of Pearl Monument. The monarchy believes in firmly prosecuting opposition activists to make examples of them, a tactic that simply contributes to their political influence and the country’s instability. Conversely, King Hamad’s government has thrown away every opportunity to establish a genuine dialogue with the opposition’s diverse network, holding all dissident parties responsible for the island’s political breakdown. State media’s interpretation of Posner’s speech illustrated the reckless mindset of both governments: “Bahrain is more stable than a year ago.”

Posner would claim that Bahrain’s violence has “reduced significantly” in recent months, but nothing could be further from the truth. That Bahrain’s violence sits at the opposite end of Syria’s spectrum is true, except relativity doesn’t negate the repressive environment that its opposition labors under. 2012’s casualties and injuries have maintained a similar pace as 2011, pushing the death count closer to 100, and police abuse remains a frequent occurrence. The island is only becoming more divided over time. Nabeel Rajab, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, his daughter Zainab and other peaceful figures of the opposition remain incarcerated for political reasons, antagonizing Bahrain’s democratic movement and foreign supporters. Meanwhile a U.S.-backed dialogue with Al Wefaq and its allies drifts lifeless down a river of mistrust, and this collective marginalization is venting into the streets.

Now the harsh sentencing of Rajab threatens to top all of the King’s blunders and add more drag on U.S. policy.

Rajab and his family counted themselves among the few who weren’t surprised by last Thursday’s verdict, because even hardened observers of Bahrain’s uprising shook their heads in disbelief. Ego and fear offer a plausible explanation for the monarchy’s counterproductive behavior. Leaving aside the injustice of his three-year sentence, one each for three different charges of instigating protests and violence, imprisoning Rajab will not accomplish the government’s objective of restoring order. Hero-making makes for flawed counterrevolution and is thus perplexing at the strategic level: three years in prison equates to at least three more years of protests. Jail walls won’t stop his Twitter account or his followers from marching in his place.

Furthermore, Rajab’s harsh treatment at Jaww prison suggests that his appeal process is as fake as King Hamad’s commitment to democracy. …more

The New York Police Department infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

Spying on Muslims led to no leads or terror cases: NYPD
21 August, 2012 – Al Arabiya News – By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO – Associated Press

In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The Demographics Unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

Police hoped the Demographics Unit would serve as an early warning system for terrorism. And if police ever got a tip about, say, an Afghan terrorist in the city, they’d know where he was likely to rent a room, buy groceries and watch sports.

But in a June 28 deposition as part of a longstanding federal civil rights case, Assistant Chief Thomas Galati said none of the conversations the officers overheard ever led to a case.

“Related to Demographics,” Galati testified that information that has come in “has not commenced an investigation.”

The NYPD is the largest police department in the nation and Mayor Michael Bloomberg has held up its counterterrorism tactics as a model for the rest of the country. After The Associated Press began reporting on those tactics last year, supporters argued that the Demographics Unit was central to keeping the city safe. Galati testified that it was an important tool, but conceded it had not generated any leads.

“I never made a lead from rhetoric that came from a Demographics report, and I’m here since 2006,” he said. “I don’t recall other ones prior to my arrival. Again, that’s always a possibility. I am not aware of any.”

Galati, the commanding officer of the NYPD Intelligence Division, offered the first official look at the Demographics Unit, which the NYPD denied ever existed when it was revealed by the AP last year. He described how police gather information on people even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing, simply because of their ethnicity and native language. …more

Turkey, US hold “operational” meeting on Syria
23 August, 2012 – Al Akhbar

Turkish and US officials Thursday began their first “operational planning” meeting aimed at bringing about the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime.

The meeting is expected to coordinate military, intelligence and political responses to the crisis in Syria where a deadly crackdown on peaceful protests that began in March 2011 has, according to the United Nations, claimed more than 18,000 lives.

Turkish foreign ministry deputy under-secretary Halit Cevik and US ambassador Elisabeth Jones are leading the delegations made up of intelligence agents, military officials and diplomats at the meeting in Ankara, a foreign ministry source told AFP.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had announced their plans for such a mechanism to hasten the end of Assad’s regime on August 11.

Thursday’s meeting come just days after US President Barack Obama warned Syria that any movement or usage of its chemical weapons would be a “red line” that would change his perspective on how to respond to the conflict.

Syria has said it would not use its chemical weapons against rebels, reserving them only for “external aggressors,” in a veiled reference to a potential Israeli or Turkish strike on the country.

On Monday, Davutoglu said Turkey can handle no more than 100,000 Syrian refugees and has proposed setting up a UN buffer zone inside Syria to shelter them.

Some analysts believe Turkey is attempting to build a case for Turkish military intervention, having previously threatened to enter Syria to crush Kurdish rebels suspected of moving into the country’s northeast.

The threat of armed groups including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and al-Qaeda which could exploit a power vacuum in Syria is also expected to figure high on the agenda of the Ankara meeting.

In Istanbul, Clinton had said she shared “Turkey’s determination that Syria must not become a haven for PKK terrorists whether now or after the departure of the Assad regime.”

The PKK are a Kurdish separatist group that has waged a military campaign against Ankara since 1984 in a bid to gain greater Kurdish autonomy in Turkey’s southeast. …more

Principles set aside in federal government’s dealings with Saudia Arabia iPolitics Insight
By Yves Engler – 23 August, 2012 -iPolitics

Yves Engler is the author of a number of books on Canadian foreign policy. His forthcoming book, The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s foreign policy, will be published in October. Dubbed “Canada’s version of Noam Chomsky” (Georgia Straight), “one of the most important voices on the Canadian Left today” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I. F. Stone” (Globe and Mail), “ever-insightful” (rabble.ca) and a “Leftist gadfly” (Ottawa Citizen), Yves Engler’s six books have been praised by Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, William Blum, Rick Salutin and many others.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have strengthened military, business and diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, one of the most misogynistic and repressive countries in the world. The country is ruled by a monarchy that’s been in power for more than seven decades. The House of Saud has outlawed labour unions and stifled independent media. With the Qur’an ostensibly acting as Saudi Arabia’s constitution, over a million Christians (mostly foreign workers) in the country are banned from owning bibles or attending church.

Outside its borders, the Saudi royal family uses its immense wealth to promote and fund many of the most reactionary, anti-women social forces in the world. They aggressively opposed the “Arab Spring” democracy movement through their significant control of Arab media, funding of establishment political movements and by deploying 1500 troops to support the 200-year monarchy in neighbouring Bahrain. The Saudi monarchy may be the worst regime in the world. (The U.S., of course, is responsible for far more violence but it is relatively free domestically. North Korea is as repressive, but its foreign policy is benign compared to Saudi Arabia’s.)

The Conservatives have been extremely deferential towards the Saudi leadership. When Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud died in June foreign minister John Baird gushed with praise. “Saudi Arabia has lost an honourable man of great achievement who has dedicated his life to the security and prosperity of the people of Saudi Arabia.”

In fact, Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, interior minister for three and a half decades, was considered a fairly conservative member of the Al Saud family who resisted the weakening of Wahhabi religious doctrine as a threat to the monarchy’s grip on power.

When defence minister and deputy premier Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud died in October 2011 Baird issued a similar assessment. “The Kingdom has lost a man of great achievement who dedicated his life to the well-being of its people.” Appointed defence and aviation minister in 1962, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was a leading figure in the country for five decades. He pushed a stridently anti-communist position and was implicated in a number of major corruption scandals.

Bahraini Regime Attacks Homes of Opposition Forces with Toxic Gasses
23 August, 2012 – FARS

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Bahraini security forces have started spraying toxic gasses in areas where members of opposition groups reside and in those areas and districts which witness daily popular protests against the Al-Khalifa regime, reports said.

Several Bahraini news websites reported on Thursday that large groups of al-Khalifa forces attacked a large number of districts in the Bahraini cities and villages to suppress and arrest those who had attended the protest rallies against the ruling system.

They also sprayed toxic gasses at residential districts and people’s houses.

Earlier reports from the Arab country said that as protests continue in Bahrain, the police keep bombarding dissenters with tear gas, which local residents say is now getting both stronger and thicker. It’s not only affecting just protesters, either – tear gas is getting into people’s homes. For many, it’s now becoming part of everyday life.

Bahraini human rights groups have cried out against the widespread use of tear gas, which they say is being spread haphazardly in areas where the authorities believe protesters live, notably lower-income Shiite neighborhoods. Several cases of death by suffocation have been reported, including of people inside their homes.

Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February 2011, calling for an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty’s over-40-year rule.

Violence against the defenseless people escalated after a Saudi-led conglomerate of police, security and military forces from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member states – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar – were dispatched to the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom on March 13, 2011, to help Manama crack down on peaceful protestors.

So far, tens of protesters have been killed, hundreds have gone missing and thousands of others have been injured.

Police clampdown on protesters continues daily. Authorities have tried to stop organized protests by opposition parties over the past month by refusing to license them and using tear gas on those who turn up.

The opposition coalition wants full powers for the elected parliament and a cabinet fully answerable to parliament. …source

Bahrain Defender Rajab Wins Twitter Appeal, Remains in Jail
23 August, 2012 – Human Rights First

Washington, DC – Leading Bahraini human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), has won his appeal of a three-month prison sentence for criticizing the country’s Prime Minister in a tweet. His comments were about Khalifah ibn Sulman al-Khalifah, the uncle of the King of Bahrain and the country’s unelected Prime Minister for more than four decades. Last week, in a separate case, Rajab was sentenced to three years in jail for his part in “illegal gatherings.”

“It’s hard to celebrate when the Bahrain authorities admit their mistake in jailing Nabeel Rajab for the tweet but keep him in prison until 2015 on other spurious charges,” said Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley. “They’ve found another way to silence him, and that’s what matters.”

During today’s appeal verdict, Rajab was removed from the court after complaining about his treatment and conditions in jail.

Rajab is one of the region’s leading human rights figures, with over 168,000 followers on the social network site Twitter. Before today’s ruling, he had already served more than a month in jail for his tweet criticizing Bahrain’s unelected Prime Minister.

Rajab is the President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. He and the BCHR have won several international awards for their work in exposing human rights violations in the country over the last 18 months, including the 2012 Roger Baldwin Medal of Freedom, awarded by Human Rights First, the 2011 Ion Ratui Democracy Award, from the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the 2011 Silbury Prize, from UK parliamentarians.