Shaikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa, President of the Information Affairs Authority, has issued a statement clarifying why some members of the media have been asked to delay their visit to Bahrain until the end of February.
He elaborated on the issue by stating that the IAA had received an unusually high volume of media visa requests for the period from February 11th – 18th and had been processing them accordingly over the last month once specific dates had been requested.
However, media that did not specify exact dates with their requests, or those who were late in applying, were asked to delay their visit, in order to insure their safety and chances of securing interviews with key figures.
“A number of journalists applied from the same media outlet, so in those cases we processed the earliest requests and asked those that applied later to come at the end of the month instead. We wanted to make sure we had a wide range of international media here during this time, rather than having 5-10 reporters from the same organization,” Sheikh Fawaz said.
He confirmed that in the coming two weeks there will be teams from many of the major foreign media outlets including BBC; VOA (Voice of America); NPR (National Public Radio); The Daily Telegraph; Financial Times; Der Spiegel; Russia Today; NHK; the wire services Reuters and AP (Associated Press); all three of the major American networks (ABC, NBC and CBS); and Arab media from the region.
“The main concern for the IAA is that journalists coming to Bahrain are able to meet with the people who can provide them with the information they seek, and especially that their safety is insured. To that end, the IAA has been working with the Ministry of Interior to arrange for media to ride along on operations and cover both legal and unauthorized demonstrations,” the IAA President added.