Bahrain Mirror: Human Rights Watch condemned crack down on the dissidents in the Gulf States, particularly through surveilling their activism on the Internet and called on the government of these states to resort to making reforms instead of imprisoning the peaceful dissidents.

After launching an interactive website that presents the profiles of 140 prominent dissidents, HRW demanded to make reforms in the Gulf States

Among the Gulf dissidents were Bahraini opposers, on top the opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, president of Bahrain Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab, prominent activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Ebrahim Sharif, blogger Ali Abdulnabi, Dr. Ali Al-Ekri, Mahdi Abu Deeb and others.

A large number of dissidents in the Gulf countries, which most of them prevent political parties and assemblies, resorted to social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube to express their opinions.

"The Gulf states have engaged in a systematic and well-funded assault on free speech to subvert the potentially transformative impact of social media and internet technology," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director.

"Instead of hauling off their peaceful online critics to jail, Gulf governments should expand debate among members of society and carry out the much-needed reforms that many of these activists have demanded for years," she further stated

According to HRW, since the beginning of the Arab uprisings in 2011, all GCC states have also expanded existing legislation and promulgated abusive new laws with a view to further curtailing free expression and punishing speech they deem "criminal," particularly online and via social media networks.

Arabic Version