In what was described as a precident in Bahrain, a journalist filed a case against the the minister of information, Nabil Al Hamar, who barred him from from writing for a newspaper.
The London-based Al Sharq Al Awsat Arabic daily said that the plaintiff, Hafez Al Sheikh Saleh, noted that the ministry did not take action against him after he filed the case. But he stressed that he had received a letter from the Manama-based Akhbar Al Kahleej daily paper, telling him that he had been banned from writing upon instructions by the minister.
“The court will look into the case in its next Saturday’s session,” he added.
The ministry of information said last November that it would sue the writer for his columns that were “not consistent with the country’s national unity aspirations.”
“What the ministry of information has done is against the law. The ban decision should be issued by the judicial authorities and not by the ministry of information. Saleh was stopped from writing before he was convicted,” the head of the Human Rights Organization in Bahrain, Sabikah Al Najjar, told the daily -- Albawaba.com
