A Bahraini human rights group said it had been targeted by anti-government hackers shortly before it was due to attend a major meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva.

The Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society’s Twitter account @bhrws2004 and website www.bhrws.org have been offline since Saturday (June 13), said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication..

It happened shortly before secretary general Faisal Fulad was due to take part in the 29th session of the HRC, which starts today and continues until July 3.

“For two weeks now, we were actively using our social media accounts to highlight the true picture of Bahrain and even planned to raise this during the HRC meeting,” Fulad told the GDN.

“Hackers targeted our website first and then our Twitter account, which has thousands of followers, in an attempt to silence us ahead of the high-level meeting in Geneva.”

He accused those responsible of trying to silence the society, which has been highlighting issues such as the exploitation of children by anti-government protesters and objections by opposition politicians to a law that would increase the rights of Shi’ite women involved in domestic disputes, such as child custody cases and divorces.

“We have compiled several reports on these issues that will be distributed and discussed with different country representatives during the meeting,” said Fulad.

“If these groups think we will keep quiet because they hack our social media account and website, then they are mistaken,” Fulad said.

The society has already set up the new Twitter account @bhrws, which it is using to push out its message.

Fulad said the rights of Shi’ite women in domestic cases were particularly significant, since women’s rights would be among issues discussed by the HRC.

A Family Law setting out the rights of Sunni women in domestic disputes has been in place since 2009, but Shi’ite political groups, led by Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, vetoed a similar law for the Shi’ite community based on objections from religious leaders.

“We will definitely speak about the obstacles in approving the Family Law for the Shi’ite community because it does not enjoy support by opposition groups and clerics,” said Mr Fulad, who is also general co-ordinator of the Bahrain Human Rights Group, a coalition of different non-governmental organisations.

During the three-week session in Geneva participants will discuss the ongoing conflict in Syria, Gaza, human rights abuses committed by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria and the situations in Belarus, the Central African Republic and Ivory Coast.

Fulad yesterday urged the Bahrain government to send a strong official delegation, explaining that several anti-government activists were expected to attend and even hold seminars and workshops.

“We need a strong delegation consisting of different experts to represent Bahrain in such meetings,” he said. - TradeArabia News Service