BFHR: 82 provocative media materials against the campaign #arresting_children_of_Bahrain were recorded

The BFHR noted that the most prominent names that published provocative materials are: Tariq al-Hassan, Chief of Public Security, and journalists: Faisal al-Shaikh, Mona al-Mutawa, and Mahmeed Al-Mahmeed, in addition to five accounts which have a lot of followers on social networking sites and 53 accounts with different names. The BFHR pointed out that these recorded materials came after the media campaign, with which activists and citizens interacted, as a result of the arbitrary arrests and violations against a number of Bahraini children, in violation of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing Rules).

The BFHR further noted that the description made by Tariq al-Hassan, Chief of Public Security, about the children detained for political and malicious reasons, in which he said that they are “victims of the negligence and failure of parents, victims of the incitement of traffickers (of human rights), servants of the East and West, traitors, spies and extremists,” explains the nature of the security doctrine that is reflected instead of protecting the rights of citizens. The BFHR also pointed out that this tweet turned into an encouraging material for journalists and some users on social networking sites and contributed to the increase in the number of degrading provocative materials published against the hashtag #arresting_children_of_Bahrain.

The BFHR explained that in journalist Mahmeed al-Mahmeed’s article, which was published on October 8, 2017 in Akhbar Al-Khaleej Newspaper and entitled Victims of the Negligence and Failure of Parents, the terms traitors and spies were repeated, and the article was based on supporting the tweets of Tariq Al-Hassan. The BFHR added that the article written by Mona al-Mutawa on October 10, 2017 and the article written by Faisal al-Shaikh on October 11, 2017 in the Bahraini Al-Watan newspaper included several expressions and hate-inciting phrases such as traitors and other.

Some of the monitored materials are: a tweet by (Khalid bin Ali Buhaila): “Damn you traitors of the country, you instill hatred and betrayal in children when they are young, to bring out a generation of criminals who terrorize the safe people and corrupt their country,” a tweet by (Fatima 2): “Offer your children as sacrifices to the charlatan” – in reference to a prominent Shia cleric, tweets by (YOUSIFsh 2), in which he used the following expressions: “followers of the Magi, scholars of deceit and hypocrisy,” and several tweets posted by journalist Muna al-Mutawa, in which she said that the houses of the victim’s families became “houses that raise terrorism before their parents who defiled their childhood with crime”, and she compared the national opposition to ISIS and called them putschists.