(Many Bahraini Shias prefer to look for inspiration to Ali al-Sistani, still Iraq's most revered Shia ayatollah; some revere Lebanon's late Sheikh Muhammad Fadlallah).
Bahraini security forces in March 2011 took control of Salmaniya and cordoned off part of the sixth floor to interrogate patients, an independent commission found.
This year an adviser to Bahrain's government pitched into a discussion at Exeter, complaining that two Bahraini analysts were "tarnishing the image of the country"—a crime back at home.When Westerners criticise the Gulf, it often raises hackles, provoking accusations of imperialism.
Last November the all-party Commons foreign affairs committee criticised the British ambassador to Manama for echoing the views of the Bahraini government.
On 30 August, the prominent Bahraini human rights defender Maryam al-Khawaja, was detained upon her arrival in Manama, the country's capital.
And it concludes by calling on the Bahraini government "to recommit to upholding press freedom and freedom of expression in Bahrain, and to take immediate steps to end all intimidation, arrest, abuse, prosecution and detention of journalists and media professionals on charges relating to their work".
Press freedom and human rights organisations have signed a letter addressed to the king of Bahrain calling for the release of Bahraini photojournalist Ahmed Humeidan (aka Humaidan).
Britain's current relations with Bahrain, for example, are bafflingly cosy – even to the extent of removing an ambassador who upset the Bahraini authorities by meeting some members of the opposition, and replacing him with one who is much more amenable.
"There is growing frustration about the UK government's increasingly visible support for Bahrain; [It] has a long, dark history of enabling state violence in Bahrain and protecting both British and Bahraini officials responsible," said John Horne of Bahrain Watch.
The Bahraini government pays millions of pounds to blue-chip PR firms to manage and burnish its image.
Scotland Yard is to be asked to investigate allegations that a Sandhurst-educated Bahraini prince should be prosecuted for torture.
