‘UAE: Arbitrary Targeting of Pakistani Shia Residents
Enforced Disappearances, Incommunicado Detention, Groundless Deportation’
Human Rights Watch, June 22, 2021

‘US-funded media spreads bizarre conspiracy theory about Shi’a Muslims
The charges against the al-Khoe’i Foundation were so wild that the State Department had to step in and disavow the story.’

Responsible Statecraft, June 14, 2021

See also: Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Pope Francis: A Meeting of the Minds in Najaf?

The Arab Spring in the Gulf countries – 10 years later

For ADHRB Weekly Newsletter #387, click here.

Alarm over ‘invasive’ Gulf contact-tracing apps

Kuwait and Bahrain have rolled out some of the most invasive Covid-19 contact-tracing apps in the world, putting the privacy and security of their users at risk, Amnesty International says. The rights group found the apps were carrying out live or near-live tracking of users’ locations by uploading GPS co-ordinates to a central server.

Bahrain and the politics of COVID-19 – Responsible Statecraft

According to Johns Hopkins University, as of May 22, 2020, Bahrain has registered 8,000 positive cases of the coronavirus, with 12 deaths. The reported numbers are suspect, especially as Bahrain’s neighbors report much higher totals of positive cases- Saudi Arabia more than 67,000, Qatar over 40,000, the UAE over 26,000, and Kuwait more than 19,000.