10 August 2016 – NGO’s today sent an open letter to Boris Johnson, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, raising urgent concerns over the poor human rights record of Bahrain’s ambassador to the UK, and asking him to raise their concerns.
The ambassador, Sheikh Fawaz bin Mohammad Al Khalifa, is a member of the Bahraini royal family and formerly the president of the Information Affairs Authority (IAA), the state’s media regulator and home of state media channels and websites, including Bahrain TV and the Bahrain News Agency.
Reporters Without Borders, Index on Censorship and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy state that Sheikh Fawaz, as IAA chief between 2010-2012 and during the Arab Spring, used his power to repress the press.
