Bahrain Mirror
The Bahrain Mirror was launched on 13 May 2011, at the height of a wave of anti-government protests. Its very first editorial explained that it was created to offset the decline in media freedom in Bahrain. The site was blocked a month later.
DFor the past three years, its staff have been playing a game of cat and mouse with the authorities. The addresses of new mirror sites are often posted on Twitter and Facebook and are just as often blocked. Whether based inside Bahrain or abroad, its journalists all use pseudonyms for safety’s sake. Those who have been identified have had to flee abroad. Some have even been stripped of their nationality.
Despite the government’s determination to silence it, the Bahrain Mirror has established itself as one of Bahrain’s few independent news outlets. As well as its journalistic reporting, the staff have posted many reports about the human rights situation and, from their Beirut headquarters, organize workshops and discussion forums on political and civil society movements in the Gulf.
