Free Ali

The stated reasons are one thing, and the alterior motives are another. What has the government to gain from these arrests? I honestly do not understand the reasoning behind them. Is it to knock down Bahrain Online in particular? The site is still running, and it is yet to be seen if it indeed will be shut down. Is it to send a strong message to all forums to behave themselves or shut down? There are tons of these sites around. Every village and alleyway in bahrain now has a forum: from Arad, and they only keep mushrooming. Do they honestly think that this will deter the others? It seems all it has done is to make anyone who has not yet been aware of forums to wake up to the growing phenomenon.

Here are some of my photos from the demonstration in support of jailed blogger Ali Abdulemam

My question in the post below has been answered. Mohammed Almosawi, 21 years old, and Hussain Yousif, 23 years old, both university students and moderators on Bahrainonline, have been summoned to the General Prosecutors office for questioning tomorrow at 9am. But when they went to receive the summons from Hoora police station they were both detained.

As was to be expected the government propaganda machine was in full force with all the newspapers having the hard work of regurgitating the Ministry of Information's press statement: Bahraini arrested for inciting hatred and threatening to destabilise the country.

DO NOT BELIEVE THE SCAREMONGERING

This is totally unconfirmed, but a message has been posted on Montadayat.org claiming that Ali Abdulemam is going to be detained for a further 15 days. Apparently, he is being accused of violating the Press Law, spreading lies and provoking hatred towards the government.

A Bahraini blogger was reportedly arrested this morning, no charges are published yet, but the draconian way of the arrest is alarming. Probably armed with an arrest warrant from the public prosecutor, the police went to Ali Abdulimam's house and on not finding him there, arbitrarily have taken his sister instead probably to ensure that he turns up at the station.

Disregard all of that. It remains to be seen why he is arrested, and what the arrest warrant says.

Although he is not primarily a blogger, and the reason for his arrest is the very popular forum he helped found, it does bring to question the status of bloggers in Bahrain. So what are bloggers going to do? Will you just shut up? Maybe continue to lambast parliament, liberals, or wahhabis but carefully tiptoe around the thorny issue of the government? How about organizing an online petition or contacting the "Committe to Protect Online Bloggers"? How about upping the anti and organizing a united online day where every forum and blog posts a severely critical article of the government and see how they react?

In any case, Abdulemam's detention is an act of political intimidation that is unbecoming of a regime that professes to guarantee the freedom of conscience. Unless this matter has to do with unpaid parking tickets, Desert Island Boy condemns his detention, the intimidation of his family members and calls for an independent media and an independent judiciary, free from the profiteering interests of the ruling family and its cabal of fat cats.

It finally happened- what every free-thinking individual dreads. Fellow Bahraini blogger and friend, Ali Abdulemam was summoned for interrogation today in the General Prosecutors office. As of time of writing, no one knows if he is arrested or will be released.

Ali Abdulemam, 27 years old, is the owner of one of the most popular site in Bahrain, Bahrainonline.org which has been blocked by Bahrain’s ISP, Batelco, for over 3 years.