Saudi and Bahrain - closing embassies and tweeting ministers

Today I read two news reports that Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have closed their embassies in Damascus. The articles can be found at Daily Press and the Jerusalem Post. Saudi Arabia quoted Asad's treatment of government opposition protestors as their reason for withdrawing their diplomatic representation from the country. Given the already poor state of relations between Saudi and Syria, I am not sure what difference this latest move will make other than to underscore that the two regimes do not see eye to eye.  

Interestingly, Bahrain's reason (as quoted in the Jerusalem Post) for shutting its embassy in Damascus is not a direct attack at Asad, but rather concerns the worsening security situation in Syria. I suspect a significant reason for Bahrain's action is that Manama has taken its lead from Riyadh  

Whilst the the Bahraini Foreign Minister is busy closing embassies, according to Al-bawaba Business, his minister colleagues are tweeting away.

Bahrain's ministers have been publicly encouraged to use personal twitter accounts in order to communicate better with the people. Considering that Bahrain has just been labelled as Enemies of the internet by Reporters without borders I find it interesting that days later the country’s ministers are being encouraged to behave like model social media users. I suspect the latter may be a direct result of the former. If so, Manama should realise that it is not ministers who should be taking encouragement to tweet, but rather the regime relaxing censorship and encouraging its citizens to tweet, and engage in other forms of social media.