Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): There's nothing easier than causing confusion to hide a big scandal. In a country like Bahrain, officials master such things. They are very good at manipulating certain situations and painting them to be sectarian in order to bury them and protect senior state officials.

This is what the Undersecretary of the Education Ministry Mohammed Mubarak did when he claimed that the main cause of the "whirlwind" related to the forged certificates issue was the Ministry of Education's refusal to recognize a number of medical degrees from a number of universities in China. The Education Ministry Undersecretary simply sees the scandal that stirred the public opinion as a mere whirlwind, and attempts to steer attention away from the issue of "forged certificates from fraudulent universities" by only focusing on an unrelated issue of "non accredited certificates in Bahrain".

Like so, the undersecretary comes to the rescue and turns the spotlight away from "public figures" in the kingdom and senior officials in high positions (ambassadors, advisors, bankers, etc.), who forged higher education degrees (Master's and PhD) from fake universities, to highlight the cases of young "students" who graduated from official universities (which unlike other Gulf states are not recognized by the Education Ministry in Bahrain). These graduates have not been employed in any state institutions, let alone high state positions, and their problem remains unsolved and not on the list of the Ministry's concerns.

When the undersecretary comes to talk about fake certificates that stirred the public opinion, we find that his tone is somewhat indifferent, as he says: "In all cases, I think these certificates are the talk of the town these days. It seems clear that most of those who carry them work in the private sector, and with the full desire of their employers..." The undersecretary does not show any concern towards the forgery issue addressing it as a moral, academic, and ethical scandal. We do not find him, despite being an undersecretary of the Ministry of Education which is directly concerned with this matter, showing any dissatisfaction with this crime of forgery that throws the country and its private and public institutions in incompetent and untrustworthy hands. We also find him reluctant to call them fake certificates, and only refers to them as the "certificates in question", and undermining the seriousness of the issue by reducing the (crime) to the mere (desire) of the employers to either accept or reject them, as if employers know anything about fraudulent universities!

Then the public prosecution comes to stress on the narrative of the undersecretary and totally falsefy the case, as the its advisor Ahmad Al-Hammadi says that: "The Ministry of Education had informed the Public Prosecution over the past years up until February 2018 about the attempts by some students to acquire academic accreditation without having met the graduation criteria and conditions". He added that the investigations carried out in number of these cases resulted in referring several suspects to criminal prosecution. Thus, they make the subject of the issue become centered about the qualifications that do not meet the requirements of the Ministry, rather than that of the fake certificates, which are granted by the non-existent university.

All of this exposes the state's direction regarding the case of forged certificates. If one wants to know how serious the case is to the government, one must take a look at the statements of the officials, and how they are distorting the course of this case. It is no longer a secret that the route was redirected from Lahaye (fake university) to China. Holders of real degrees from Chinese universities, not recognized by the Ministry of Education in Bahrain, and those banned from working with their degrees will become scapegoats for the prominent figures who forged their degrees, and who are still bragging about their fake achievements to this day  

Arabic Version