After the Sheikhs

by Davidson, Christopher

  Unsurprisingly, Shia-led protests, most of which have focused on their socio-economic discrimination or the jailing of their leaders, continued to gather pace following these revelations and the issue of sectarian manipulation is now very much at the core of the bloody revolution underway in Bahrain. However, even prior to 2011 these protests were being met with extreme force. In March 2009, for example, following the arrest of twenty-three Shia leaders, crowds had gathered to demand their release and carried placards with the slogans ‘We are against sectarian discrimination’ and ‘No, no to oppressing freedoms’. The Bahraini police—mostly made up of Sunni Bahraini nationals or Sunni expatriates from Jordan, Pakistan, and elsewhere—shot teargas canisters into crowds and for several days fought pitched battles in several Shia villages. Interviewed by the New York Times, Shia protestors complained that they were all but banned from holding military and security positions, and that ‘…there are no jobs because of naturalisation of foreigners, because of the political prisoners, because of the abuse of the rights of the citizen’.141

  In August 2010, shortly before parliamentary elections were due to be staged, four more Shia activists were arrested including the spokesperson for a Shia political group called the Haq Movement for Liberty and Democracy,142 the head of a Shia human rights group committed to helping those who have been tortured,143 and others belonging to a group that had—according to the government—been ‘created to undermine the security and stability of the country’.144 Commenting on the arrests, the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights claimed ‘I don’t think anyone in Bahrain believes those stories’ and predicted they would further inflame sectarian tensions in the country.145 By the end of the month it was thought that nearly 160 activists had been detained—initially high profile Shia political and human rights leaders, but later including ‘many young men not known as activists’. The official view was again one of denial, with spokespersons claiming that the detainees were ‘suspected of security and terrorism violations, and were not being held for expressing dissident political views’ and that ‘…the only thing the government did wrong was that it went too easy at first’. The government also stated that it would ‘…no longer tolerate unrest among the Shia’ and that those convicted of ‘…compromising national security or slandering the nation can be deprived of health care and other state services’.146

  Writing for The Economist in October 2010, one week before the elections, one analyst tried to sum up the mood in Bahrain following these harsh government counter measures. In the short term, it was argued, the measures might work, as ‘Opposition and human-rights people could be frightened into acquiescence’. However, it was pointed out that due to the ‘…government’s mishandling of events in the past few weeks [it] has stirred a well of resentment that may, in the longer term, spell danger for the Sunni ascendancy—and even for the ruling house’. Significantly, the article also claimed that the government was ‘blatantly harassing the opposition parties, particularly the main Shia-dominated one’ and that its leaders were being ‘…assailed in the pro-government press with accusations of encouraging terrorism and being in the pocket of “outside powers”, meaning in essence Iran’.147 Indeed, when a British member of the House of Lords148 met with Bahraini Shia leaders in London, and when the British ambassador to Bahrain met Shia leaders in Manama, the Bahraini state-backed newspapers were full of allegations of British- or Iranian-engineered plots to overthrow the ruling family. A petition was even signed by prominent Bahraini Sunnis demanding the expulsion of the British ambassador on these grounds.

  The Shia of Saudi Arabia have for many years also complained bitterly of discrimination. Unlike their Bahraini counterparts, they form only a minority of Saudi nationals, albeit now a substantial minority of between 5 and 15 per cent, with most dwelling in the Eastern Province, close to Bahrain, and home to several of the kingdom’s key oil fields. Over the years, most of their complaints have been over the province’s relative underdevelopment compared to the rest of Saudi Arabia and the institutional discrimination they have faced, especially over public sector employment opportunities. There have been fewer protests than in Bahrain, nonetheless riots broke out in 1979—which were brutally suppressed—and in 2009 there were reports of attacks by Saudi security forces on Shia pilgrims.149 On occasion there has also been organised opposition, with 450 Shia activists signing a petition in 2003 entitled ‘Partners in One Nation’ which demanded the equal treatment of Shia under Saudi Arabia’s laws.150

  As with Bahrain, Shia protests were taking place in Saudi Arabia immediately prior to 2011. In December 2010 for example, violent clashes erupted in the holy city Medina during the Ashoura commemorations—a key religious day for Shia. It transpired that hundreds of Sunni hard-liners had attacked Shia worshippers, reportedly using poles and stones. Although security forces were eventually deployed, there was apparently a delay of more than two hours before the attackers were dispersed. Moreover, while several state-backed newspapers reported the attacks, they eschewed mention of the sectarian element, with one151 even blaming ‘young zealots wearing black clothes’—in a reference to Shia worshippers—for inciting the violence.152

  The situation in Kuwait has generally been better, as although the Shia community is estimated to be a fairly substantial 15 per cent of the national population, it is much more closely integrated into the emirate’s business elite. Nevertheless, there have been a growing number of incidents which indicate rising sectarian tension, especially with regard to allegations of strengthening links between Kuwait’s Shia and Bahrain’s Shia, and between Kuwait’s Shia and Iran. In late 2010 for example, the state-backed Al-Qabas newspaper reported that there were Shia cells throughout the Gulf monarchies, including Kuwait, which were ready to strike in the event of any attack on Iran. Meanwhile two Kuwaiti Shia activists were stripped of their citizenship on the grounds that they were ‘trying to stir up conflict amongst Muslims’. Most dramatically, four Kuwaiti Shia were also arrested at about the same time and charged, along with three Iranian expatriates, with spying for Iran in Kuwait and leaking confidential military information, a charge which the Iranian government has vehemently denied.153 In early 2011, soon after the beginning of the Bahraini revolution the tension in Kuwait escalated further, with other state-backed newspapers publishing anti-Shia articles. Many described the Bahraini revolution through a sectarian lens, promoting evidence of connections to Iran, while Al-Watan newspaper carried an article specifically on one of the denaturalised Shia activists.154 Although nothing compared to Bahrain’s Al-Bandar scandal, the Kuwaiti government has also recently been criticised for compiling demographic statistics based on sect. In June 2011 a report began circulating widely on the internet which claimed that the government was trying to determine the exact number—rumoured to be 15.7 per cent—of the Kuwaiti Shia national population. This prompted a strong response from the Kuwaiti Ministry for the Interior which stated that ‘There is no truth whatsoever in the allegations that the interior ministry has prepared statistics about the number of Kuwaiti nationals based on their Sunni or Shiite sects’ and that ‘…the interior ministry does not have the prerogatives to issue such statistics’.155

  Evidence of sectarian tension in the UAE, where there is believed to be a Shia minority making up about 5 per cent of the total national population, is currently more anecdotal. As in Kuwait, most of the Emirati Shia tend to be well integrated, especially in Dubai where they are a major force in the emirate’s business community. In recent years, however, there has been a discernible shift in attitudes, with many Shia complaining of more limited employment opportunities and—on occasion—discrimination in the workplace. With the situation in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and with the rising tension between the UAE and Iran this is likely to get much worse in the near future. Already there are clear indications that the UAE authorities distrust Arab Shia expatriates in their country, including even those who have loyally worked in the UAE’s public sector for decade
s. In 2009, for example, the UAE reportedly began deporting dozens of long-term Lebanese Shia expatriates, seemingly on the grounds that they had financial or other connections to Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Since then many other Lebanese and other Arab Shia have been deported from the UAE, usually with no notice. Interestingly, a committee has now been formed in Lebanon to combat this sectarian discrimination, and has provided details of many of the Lebanese deportees, including one man who had worked as a journalist in Sharjah for twenty-two years and another who had lived in the UAE for thirty-five years, owned three companies and had $5 million worth of contracts in the UAE, and employed more than eighty Arab Sunni expatriates in the country. The former claims that he had no warning and was not even allowed to pack his bags, while the latter explained that he was held at the airport after returning from a vacation and denied entry into the UAE for ‘security reasons’. Confirming the deportations, a senior Hezbollah representative has argued that the UAE has ‘violated their rights and freedom’ and has called on the UAE authorities to ‘save the hundreds of Lebanese families who have contributed to the development of your country’.156

  Censorship and limiting expression

  Best viewed as an early response to the accumulating internal pressures in the Gulf monarchies, coupled with a lack of transparency associated with prevailing political structures, there has been a dramatic increase in censorship in the region. For decades there have been crude attempts to black out articles in foreign newspapers, ban certain books, fire journalists, and harass academics who spoke out of line. But with the advent of new communications—especially involving mobile telephones and the internet—the governments’ responses have had to become far more sophisticated, often employing the latest technologies, methods, and new legal apparatus to cut off channels of free expression and remove or discredit those responsible. As the final chapter of this book demonstrates, this is becoming harder for governments to do, as media evolves and opponents manage to keep information and ideas flowing beyond governmental control.

  Nevertheless, there have been notable examples of effective censorship in all of the Gulf monarchies in the past few years. This has not gone unnoticed, with all six states having slipped further down the World Press Freedom Index, as compiled by Reporters without Borders. As of early 2012, the highest ranked Gulf monarchy was Kuwait—in 78th position—with the UAE, Qatar, and Oman ranked firmly below dozens of African dictatorships—in 112th, 114th, and 117th positions respectively—and with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain ranking among the very worst countries in the world.157 Although superficially successful in the short term in limiting opposition voices, the various censorship strategies employed have been leading to heightened fears and widespread criticism and condemnation of the regimes responsible, not only from the international community, but also from resident national and expatriate populations. In a summer 2011 YouGov poll commissioned by the BBC’s Doha Debates, which collected the responses of 1000 participants from the region, it was revealed that more than half of the Gulf respondents were ‘too afraid to speak out against their rulers’. This contrasted sharply with a similar poll amongst nationals of North African Arab Spring states, where respondents reportedly expressed optimism about their freedoms.158

  Bahrain unsurprisingly provides some of the most extreme examples of censorship and attacks on free speech, with a large number of recent assaults and arrests involving opinion-makers and commentators. In August 2010, for example, it was reported by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights that the editor in chief of Bahrain’s Alwatan newspaper159 was attacked by several masked men outside the newspaper’s headquarters in the early hours of the morning. He claimed that they asked him if he worked for the newspaper, to which he said ‘yes’, and then they began to beat him and set fire to his car.160 Although Alwatan is believed to be funded by a member of the ruling family, has close links to the regime, and has been accused of promoting sectarianism in Bahrain, its pro-government stance is thought to have wavered in recent years. The following month another disturbing incident happened when the founder of Bahrain’s most popular internet forum161—Bahrainonline.org—was arrested by security services and his website blocked on the grounds that it was ‘spreading false news’. Thought to be one of more than 200 bloggers and internet activists seized that summer, he was increasingly seen as a threat to the government as his forum allowed opposition voices to discuss matters freely with other Bahrainis. Visited by thousands every day, the forum was particularly well known for having helped break news of the Bandargate scandal, along with ‘highlighting cases of sectarian discrimination, police brutality, state corruption, and political naturalisation’. According to one user, the forum was so active that ‘…if [she] heard a bang at night [she] would be able check on the internet [forum] and, sure enough, someone would have posted about it within minutes. Some users even posted photos of government security agents who show up at protests, prompting the agents to start covering their faces when appearing in public’. Hundreds of other websites have since been blocked, with all surviving websites in Bahrain now having to register their details with the Ministry for Information. Even Google Earth has been blocked, after activists began using satellite images from the software to demonstrate how vast and lavish the ruling family’s palaces were in comparison to the poor suburbs that most Bahrainis have to live in.162

  Other incidents in 2010 included the fining of journalists who had attempted to report on money-laundering scandals involving ministers, despite their cases having shifted from the mandate of the prosecution to the law courts and thus no longer being subjected to gag orders.163 That year was notable also for a statement from the Ministry for information that BlackBerry mobile devices were no longer to be used for ‘circulating any form of news’. This was a government reaction, much like that to the internet fora, based on a growing concern that BlackBerrys were being used by Bahrainis to pass on information about government corruption and abuses. The statement went on to explain that: ‘…mobile phones have been relaying news of incidents and topics in Bahrain. In view of the impact of such news in causing disarray and confusion to the public… those individuals and agencies were summoned by the Ministry, and legal and judicial procedures will be filed against violators of laws…’ Although it is unclear how successful the ministry has been in controlling the use of BlackBerrys, it seems that the Blackberry World application feature has been blocked in Bahrain, thus preventing the installation of messenger and discussion applications.

  The UAE has also seen a varied and forceful response to channels of free expression in recent years. Unlike Bahrain, where the government does little to disguise its practices, the UAE has been more cautious in its methods, not least because its non-oil economic sectors rely increasingly on a sound international reputation. Moreover, a deeper sense of irony pervades these debates in the UAE compared to Bahrain, as its rulers have on occasion tried to position themselves as champions of free speech and take credit for it. Notably, in 2004 the minister for higher education and scientific research164 stated at a book fair held in Abu Dhabi that ‘…the UAE now lives in an age in which people should be supplied with all kinds of information… all people have the right to choose and select information and are wise enough to make that choice. No information should be withheld from the public in this day and age’.165 Later that year the crown prince of Dubai—Muhammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum—repeated an earlier freedom of speech statement he had first made during the opening of Dubai Media City in 2000,166 by urging media representatives to ‘maintain objectivity in their pursuance of truth… and by promising to iron out difficulties hindering them as they carry out their duties’, before stating that ‘all authorities must render all facilities and moral support to media corporations operating in Dubai… which must remain an oasis of responsible freedom and democracy of opinion and expression’.167 In 2008 Abu Dhabi even set up a new English language newspaper—The National—with the aim of promoting transparency and hard-hitting cover
age of both domestic and regional issues. Launched by a highly paid team of experienced western journalists and editors, the newspaper began with great fanfare, before the realities of being a state-backed newspaper set in and staff began to leave. In 2010 Muhammad bin Rashid was back to the subject, this time as ruler of Dubai, with a Ramadan speech to journalists and editors replete with clichés and truisms on the nature of free speech: ‘…my directives are clear and beyond any questioning, as we rely on candour and transparency. We strongly believe that media is the mirror of the nation. It has a noble message to disseminate and to enlighten the public, away from exaggeration, bias and distortion of facts. Media is the nation’s voice. The sun cannot be blocked by a sieve’.168

  After the onset of the 2008 credit crunch and the dramatic effect it had on the UAE’s economy, especially Dubai’s real estate sector, the UAE finally clarified its well-known restrictions on the media—most of which had previously relied on informal threats and self-censorship—by introducing new legislation. In particular, a draft law began to circulate that introduced massive new financial penalties for journalists who crossed red lines such as ‘disparaging senior government officials or the royal family’ or ‘misleading the public and harming the economy’. While jail sentences were withdrawn, the huge fines were viewed by most critics as a highly effective way of stifling free speech, as newspaper editors would be unwilling to allow journalists to tackle risky topics. In a comprehensive report on the new law, Human Rights Watch concluded that ‘[it would] regulate the news media unlawfully by restricting free expression and would unduly interfere with the media’s ability to report on sensitive subjects’. Furthermore, the report also observed that ‘…the pending law includes provisions that would grant the government virtually complete control in deciding who is allowed to work as a journalist and which media organisations are allowed to operate in the country’.169 In April 2009 the law was finally passed, with a government official claiming that it was ‘consistent with the UAE’s pioneering regional role in promoting freedom of the press’.170