Bahrain 1st-Hand: Journalist Lamees Dhaif "I Can't Be Silent Knowing My People Are Being Oppressed"

Lamees DhaifI can't live my life knowing that my own people are being oppressed like this and I'm not saying or doing anything. I am a successful journalist and I had a bright future.

But I have thrown that away. I don't care about my future anymore. I care about those people. They are giving their lives, hoping for a better future - not for them, for their coming generations.

And what Bahraini people are doing is very brave. Bahraini people are really brave and they deserve for the world to see how brave they are. They are people who have nothing to defend themselves and they are facing the money of the petrol and the armies of many countries, and yet they are standing with their heads high and saying: "We will not obey. We will not go back."

Bahraini activist and journalist Lamees Dhaif speaking to Maia Newley

Maia Newley on WhoSay

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Maia Newley writes for Daily Kos:

Lamees Dhaif is a Bahraini journalist and activist. She has spoken out loudly against corruption in the judiciary in Bahrain as well as trying to give a voice to those Bahraini's who were so often overlooked by the more mainstream Gulf media outlets. Her work regularly brought her into conflict with the authorities and, in 2009, when she wrote a series of articles in Al-Waqt (A Bahraini newspaper) entitled "Shameful Case - The time for silence is over", which exposed corruption in the judiciary of Bahrain, she found herself summoned to the Public Prosecutor's Office on charges which had been brought by the Supreme Judiciary Council deputy. At that time, she was facing charges of "publicly insulting the National Council" and risked imprisonment if found guilty.

At that time, Lamees Dhaif said:

The charges against me are based on the 1976 Penal Code and not the 2002 Press Code, that is, on the basis that I am a 'citizen' who violated the Penal Code and not a journalist practicing my profession and tackling issues considered defamatory to the Judiciary." She went on to say: "The Public Prosecutor's Office has opened another channel by which to prosecute journalists outside of the framework of the Press Code.

However, not to be intimidated, rather than stop writing such articles, Lamees found herself even more motivated to expose corruption and wrong-doing when she came across it.

Last year, when the protests in Bahrain got underway, Lamees began chronicling them and, as she tells me in the interview:

I went from writing one article a week, to suddenly writing three articles a day. I was not the kind of journalist that they liked, in fact they hated me.

On 17th March, 2011, Lamees was again called in by Bahraini officials, this time accused of having been involved in 'illegal' protests. She was arrested and interrogated and only allowed to leave after being forced to agree to stop writing about the protests.

As you will hear Lamees herself describe, she was subjected to many different kinds of abuse and finally she was left with little option but to leave Bahrain and live elsewhere. Even outside of Bahrain, Lamees has continues to give a voice to the protesters despite the fact that this undoubtedly still puts her at risk of harm, however she believes the risks are worth it.

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