Bahrain deports US teacher for working as ‘unaccredited journalist’ 11 August 2013, Manama: has deported a US citizen over her “anti-Bahrain articles” and “publishing articles on media sites linked with Hezbollah”, the militant group in Lebanon. The Ministry of State for Communications charged that the US woman that it did not name incited sectarianism in the country where she was working as a teacher in a nursery school in the posh area of Riffa, south of the capital Manama. Reports named the woman as Erin Kilbride and referred to her as the “co-editor of Yemen and Gulf States pages” of a website. She was described as a “researcher and teacher currently based in Bahrain” who “has lived and travelled through the Middle East”. She reportedly holds a bachelor’s degree in Women and Gender Studies and Arabic Language from Georgetown University. In a social network for business, Kilbride introduced herself as a “research assistant” in a think tank. She said that she “tracks foreign and domestic security developments, amalgamating key events to create timelines for the Armed Conflict Database”, and that she “manages and updates the Yemen, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Sahel, and International Terrorism sections of the Armed Conflict Database.” The Ministry of State for Communications said that its investigation team probing the “suspicious activities of the US citizen on the internet” found out that she had broken the Bahraini labour and immigration laws by working as an “unaccredited journalist”. “In compliance with the law and in coordination with the other concerned ministries, her visa was cancelled and she was deported from the country,” the ministry said in a statement. Shaikh Fawaz Bin Mohammad Al Khalifa, the minister, on his Twitter account thanked the investigation team for their efforts and posted a picture of the teacher’s bedroom showing the yellow flag of Hezbollah. The minister said that the US citizen wrote articles for a “banned Bahraini organisation” and for a Lebanese publication. Bahrain in May banned all contacts and communication with the Lebanese group, saying that it was a terrorist organisation.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 16:44:39 +0000
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