Reposting fake content ‘punishable’ under law

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

Sharing or reposting false, hateful or fabricated material online can leave users open to prosecution in Bahrain, with each repost treated as a separate publication offence, Zahra Murad, Head of the Cybercrime Prosecution, said during an appearance on Bahrain TV.

Murad said freedom of opinion and expression is protected under Article 23 of Bahrain’s Constitution and recognised in international instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

But she said the right is not absolute and must be exercised within limits laid down by the Constitution and the law, without infringing the foundations of the Islamic faith, the unity of the people, national security or public order.

Information

Before posting or sharing material, users should check that the information is true, verify its source and make sure the content does not carry hate speech or any form of incitement, she said.

Freedom of expression ends, she added, when harm begins to public security or civil peace. Murad said Bahrain’s Penal Code punishes the publication of false news that harms public security, along with the making and circulation of fake images that damage the public interest.

Stirring hatred against, or contempt for, a given sect is also a crime, she said, because it can harm civil peace, with penalties reaching up to two years in prison.

She said the law draws no line between the person who creates unlawful content and the person who republishes it.

Anyone who posts or reposts a video, audio clip, image or text is taken to have adopted its content and can be treated as a principal offender if the material harms public order, public morals or public security.

Each act of publication, she said, stands as its own offence. Murad said Bahrain’s criminal law contains a full section dealing with crimes against internal security, adding that offences linked to false news carry added weight under the current exceptional circumstances.

In such conditions, she said, care in publishing and sharing material is both a legal duty and a national one.

She said the Cybercrime Prosecution was created in November 2022 by decision of Attorney General Dr Ali bin Fadhel Al Buainain to deal with new forms of digital crime, including cases tied to social media, which often draw wide public interest.

Cases

Prosecutors handling such cases act independently and are governed by the law alone, she said, not by the noise of social media. When the legal elements of an offence are made out, the law is applied.

When they are absent, no crime arises and innocence remains the starting point.

Murad said the Public Prosecution is dealing firmly with cases affecting public order, national security and internal security, adding that this stems from its duty to protect society under the powers granted to it by law. She also pointed to crimes linked to artificial intelligence, including deepfake videos and images falsely attributed to real people.

The Cybercrime Prosecution handles such cases through a method that includes examining the facts, giving the act its legal character, questioning suspects and witnesses, and working with specialist technical bodies, she said.

She referred in particular to the Ministry of Interior’s Cybercrime Directorate and its technical laboratory, which examines fabricated clips and prepares reports to determine if the material can be linked to those accused of making or circulating it.