Bahrain Oppostion not a single party or religous “sect”, it’s a popular movement that detests al Khliafa regime tyranny

Many reports this weekend have identified Rajab as a “Shia”, or as the Telegraph wonderfully puts it, “a Shia Muslim activist”. Firstly, on a point of fact, Rajab is secular and comes from a mixed Shia and Sunni family. Secondly, even if he was a practicing Shia, why would this be a relevant detail? His work is concerned with human rights and the protest on Friday was concerned with the alleged mistreatment and possible torture of political detainees, such as Hassan ‘Oun.

Bahrain Opinion: An Open Letter to Journalists “Get The Story Right”
9 January, EA WorldView

Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, who was attacked by police on Friday

Dear Journalists,

Over the coming days, you might find the need to report on Bahrain. Beyond a quick feature about the Countess of Wessex’s jewels, courtesy of the regime, or the proposed Formula One Grand Prix, you might notice a story which has got the regime worried about its image.

On Friday, Nabeel Rajab, the President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was beaten by police in Manama. The activist was at the head of a peaceful march and had been talking with security forces, moments before they suddenly attacked. This is not an unusual event in Bahrain at the moment (indeed, by current standards, the police were relatively restrained) but it is significant because Rajab is internationally-respected as a champion of human rights.

The Bahraini regime, and presumably its PR consultants, have a series of lines they are advancing to the media to spin both this specific incident and the wider story. Below are four reporting pitfalls into which several media organisations fell this weekend:

1) The Ministry of Interior (MOI) footage is deliberately edited to create a false account

On Saturday, the MOI released a video to support their version of events. They claim that police found Rajab on the floor and then kindly helped him up and escorted him to an ambulance. The video conveniently leaves out much of the incident. Two videos recorded by protesters capture the event much better.

These two videos, featured on EA along with the MOI footage, have been available since Friday night. Therefore there is no good reason for why BBC chooses only to link to the MOI video, and why CNN introduces the footage with the headline, “Bahrain denies it beats activist”. (On a side note to CNN, I can confirm for you that @NabeelRajab is definitely Rajab, so you no longer need to caveat your report with: “writing on a Twitter account with his name and picture, that the Bahrain Center for Human Rights said is his”.)

There are photos of Rajab which establish he was cut under his eye, with bruising on his face. Therefore, saying the information of his wounds was obtained from “a senior U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity”, raises the wholly unnecessary inference that he might not actually have been injured. …more