Bahrain Mirror: Bahrain’s First High Criminal Court, presided over by judge Mohammed bin Ali Al Khalifa began looking into the case of the accused journalist Hani Al-Fardan and editor-in-chief of Al-Wasat Newspaper, Mansour Al-Jamri, who are charged with slandering an extremist Salafist Member of Parliament named Abdul Halim Murad.

Bahrain Mirror: For the third successive year, Bahrain maintained its global ranking in “Freedom House” annual report for press freedom. Bahrain ranked 188 worldwide. It was classified as “not free” in the press freedom index for 2014 and the second worst Arab country after Syria.