Bahrain, it is time to practise what you tweet

Nabeel Rajab, pictured left, is confronted by a police officer

Today I read in the BBC that Bahrain's prominent rights activist Nabeel Rajab is again in police custody, arrested on suspicion of posting tweets criticising the ruling Sunni regime. In response to his arrest, Rajab stated that: "I was targeted because I was exercising my right to defend human rights, which is a right that is stipulated by the Bahraini constitution." Unfortunately, throughout the Arabian Peninsula it remains commonplace for public critics of ruling parties to receive a knock on the door from the officers of the peace, irrespective of constitutional stipulations. Bahrain is clearly no different. 

Interestingly, it is worth reminding readers that not long ago Bahrain publicly stated its ambitions to become the regional "social media" leader. At the time of this statement the small island's rulers called on all members of parliament to open twitter accounts to help set the trend of widespread social media use.

Once it encouraged citizens to use twitter the Sunni leadership should have been prepared for both critics and supporters alike to follow its direction. Unfortunately, considering Nabeel Rajab's arrest, it seems that Bahrain is not quite practising what it tweets. 

In reality, I am pretty sure that when Bahrain's ruling regime encouraged its members of parliament to start tweeting away it intended for their tweets to set an appropriate tone of conformity for the rest of its citizens to follow. Considering the ongoing political and religio-sectarian tensions in Bahrain, this was a dangerous (and arguably very blinkered) social media strategy. It seems Rajab and his fellow activists are pushing the bounds of cyber-free-speech as far as they can and I doubt this will be the last time Rajab falls foul of Bahrain's twitter police.