Under the title “Dooley doodling” appeared a post in the Gulf Daily News of 18 May 2015. It is supposed to a pun on the name of Brian Dooley, the director of Human Rights First’s human rights defenders’ programme. The writer [Duri?] draws fortunately more attention to Dooley’s piece in the Huffington Post of 6 May: ‘How to Sound Like a Washington Expert on Bahrain’.
There is a rather-vaguely worded attack on his work for human rights defenders in Bahrain without ever substantiating any of the claims that he or his organization is receiving money from unnamed sources (“Guess who foots the bills?“) or going in any detail on the harassment of the human rights defenders (“Every time Mr Rajab or any of the players happen to be [SIC] behind bars, expect one piece from him attacking the Bahraini government and its institutions.“). Dooley is quite capable of defending himself, but the awards aspect below is worth a bit more attention:
What is good to know is that according to the writer Mr Dooley “by his sheer closeness to the mainstream media has partially succeeded in tarnishing Bahrain’s image in the international media.” The writer gets particularly worked up over the treatment of the His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa who is mentioned as just a long-serving leader and not the ” the father of the nation”. “When His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa took office in the early 70s, Bahrain was a collection of fishing boats and mud houses spread here and there, with poor infrastructure and inferior public services. It is beyond imagination how Bahrain has managed to transform itself from that fishing society to being the financial and tourism hub of the Middle East within a short span of time……And what is more, the Premier is the only Arab to have won dozens of international awards from among the Arab leaders. International awards are given by international and neutral bodies in recognition of outstanding work done by an individual. The Premier has won them not just once, but a dozen times.” Well this may be true but I haven’t been able to find much in terms awards except the usual list of diplomatic honors bestowed on all Government leaders by other Governments. [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamad_bin_Isa_Al_Khalifa].
This is followed by the usual rant of violations in the USA that Mr Dooley should rather concentrate on. The answer to that is the same as in my earlier post re China:[https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/how-utterly-wrong-a-chinese-newspaper-commentary-can-be/]
For the full letter see: Gulf Daily News » News Details » Letters.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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