Public Relations as a weapon of Oppression

The PR Octopus & Its Incredibly Long Tentacles
20 February, 2012 – Marc Owen Jones

3 weeks ago, a British PR and Strategic Communication firm called Dragon Associates forced the Guardian to take down an article from their Comment is Free section. Today the Guardian have put it back up. The article in question stated that the head of security at the BIC (Bahrain International Circuit) had been involved in torturing employees on the racetrack premises. Dragon Associates claimed that the article contained ‘considerable inaccuracies’. Despite this, the article has gone back up exactly the same as before, albeit with a footnote tacked on at the end. This footnote reads

In its letter of complaint, the BIC makes the following points: while the BIC accepts that in April 2012 the police took some of its employees to the police station for interrogation, it denies the allegation that its security staff were involved in any repressive activities, or that its staff tortured, beat or mistreated BIC employees on BIC premises. The BIC says that if any of its employees were beaten or otherwise badly treated by BIC security staff – which it denies – it would have been without BIC’s knowledge, instructions or orders.

It is interesting to note that the Guardian were so quick to take down a piece that ended going back up unchanged. John Lubbock, the article’s co-author, also informed me that the piece was taken down prior to the Guardian actually receiving a formal complaint. Despite all these interesting oddities, Dragon Associates were obviously successful in stalling the incendiary article until Bahrain had more or less secured the hosting of the Grand Prix (tickets go on sale today). Furthermore, they also managed to get a footnote added to the article, which seems a bit unusual on ‘Comment is Free’. The footnote is also odd because it basically says that while the BIC deny that its security were involved in the mistreatment, it accepts that it could have happened without their knowledge. Essentially, this added paragraph does nothing to disprove the veracity of the preceding article, it merely serves to add an element of doubt to the story. Not quite sure how Dragon Associates managed to pull this off, maybe they used ‘Right of Reply’. All I know is, when these guys breathe fire, people get scared.

Tear Gas and Tyre Burning

For those who don’t see failure to reform as a good enough reason to not host the Formula One, the announcement that tickets would go on sale today was welcome. Unfortunately, however, the reporting of ‘good news’ in Bahrain is often accompanied by a concerted effort to marginalise any bad news. Indeed, I spent my morning being trolled for tweeting an article in Al-Wasat (a Bahrain newspaper) about how tear gas was harming domestic birds. This trolling included the suggestion that I carry out my own independent experiment into the potential long-term impact of tear gas on domestic avian species before tweeting the article. I suppose that’s not an unreasonable suggestion. I mean I could theoretically take a degree in biology, gain work experience in a laboratory, apply for funding to do the aforementioned project, and then, 6 years down the line, consider tweeting the Al-Wasat article again? …more