Friday, 31 July 2026
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No more hiding behind borders, Bahrain told
It was game, set and match for Bahraini dissidents Saeed Shehabi and Moosa Mohammed in their case against the Kingdom of Bahrain this week. The UK’s Supreme Court ruled in their favour, rejecting an appeal from Bahrain, which was claiming sovereign immunity from allegations it used spyware to infiltrate the computers of the pair in the UK back in 2011.
We’ve been following the case ([link removed]) and it’s hard to downplay this victory both for the men and for the broader ecosystem. The Kingdom had argued that section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978, which creates an exemption to the act in the event of personal injuries and damage to property, was being misinterpreted and unduly broadened in this case. It said that a proper reading of the Act would afford immunity to states in cases where the actors or some of the acts causing personal injury were located outside the UK.
But section 5 was enacted long before sophisticated spyware existed. The Supreme Court judges therefore rejected these arguments, stating that: “Modern technology enables acts of surveillance to be carried out in the UK remotely. Even if carried out by foreign state actors located outside the UK, such acts involve an infringement of UK territorial sovereignty.”
Leigh Day, the law firm representing Shehabi and Mohammed, said that “the Supreme Court judgment has now settled the scope of section 5 of the State Immunity Act 1978. A foreign state cannot rely on state immunity to escape accountability for personal injury caused by acts within the UK, even where other causative acts take place abroad and the state’s agents are not present in this country. The court has recognised that a rigid distinction between the location of an act and its effects is artificial and unprincipled.”
Shehabi said afterwards that “this is not just a victory for us, but for everyone targeted by authoritarian states beyond their own borders.” He’s right. We’ve been bleating on about transnational repression for years now because it’s prolific and getting worse. And when a dissident is attacked abroad, spyware is often a feature. This ruling makes clear that states can now be held officially accountable. As Shehabi also said after: “The hardest part of being targeted by alleged state-sponsored hacking is the feeling that nowhere is safe”. The UK arguably becomes a touch safer now.
Mohammed said that the “victory changes the balance of power”. He spoke about being tortured by the Bahraini regime since he was a teenager and pursued across borders. “Today, the tables have turned,” he continued. “I am no longer the one being chased. I am chasing justice. I am chasing accountability. The era of abusing victims while hiding behind state immunity is over.”
The UK has earned itself a reputation as a hunting ground for authoritarian regimes, and that’s partly because our response to counter it has been woeful. In some instances, police have told victims to keep a lower profile and that their cases are too hard to tackle because the assailants are overseas. So, it’s good to now have legal clarity on the question of proximity. Being abroad doesn’t grant you a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Jemimah Steinfeld
CEO, Index on Censorship
** The best of Index this week
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Complacency, culture wars and money troubles are killing political theatre ([link removed])
A new investigation reveals UK arts professionals would rather self-censor than confront uncomfortable truths ([link removed])
Ban offensive T-shirts? ([link removed])
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** In case you missed it
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Ever wondered if you could just ask your phone to self-destruct. Well Samuel Tunick did just that. He was flying back to Atlanta when he was stopped at the border. Customs officers asked him to give them the password to his phone. Instead, he gave them a kill switch or “duress password” which activated software which instantly started wiping his mobile. He’s now being prosecuted on an obstruction charges. It’s thought to be one of the earliest instances of federal authorities charging someone for wiping a phone clean remotely, according to the New York Times. Tunick thinks he was targeted for campaigning against a police and fire training centre due to be built in urban forest in Atlanta.
In Azerbaijan, journalists and media workers (including journalist trainers) from the independent station Toplum TV have been sent to prison for between 12 and 15 years. All were accused of “acting as an organised criminal group” to obtain and use western donor funds – illegal under Azerbaijan law. Ricardo Guteiérrez, general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, said that the prosecution was political and aimed at silencing courageous voices in Azerbaijan. The journalists are Alasgar Mammadli (Toplum TV founder and media lawyer), Mushfig Jabbar, Farid Ismayilov, Elmir Abbasov, Ali Zeynal, Ramil Babayev, Ilkin Amrahov, Akif Gurbanov and Ruslan Izzetli.
In a case of the poacher turned gamekeeper, the Cockroach Janta Party, which managed to force resignation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s education minister last week, has set up an online portal allowing protesters to upload pictures of police officers who were allegedly involved in assaults during the 20 July protest.
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** Flashback
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Jailed for wearing a T-shirt ([link removed])
Sophie Wilkinsonvol.55 no.1 ([link removed])
There’s been a lot of talk this week in the UK about whether wearing a T-shirt with a slogan on it can be considered incitement to violence. This is all because Reform UK’s Nigel Farage reported Green Party leader Zack Polanski to the police for sharing an image of a man wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “We’re only making plans for Nigel” next to an image of a guillotine. We argue here ([link removed]) why this does not incite violence.
It’s not just in the UK where these discussions are taking place. Sometimes the decision to wear a slogan T-shirt can end you up in prison. We reported on this in our previous magazine issue where we covered the story of Moroccan feminist Betty Lachgar, imprisoned for wearing a T-shirt that read, “Allah is lesbian.”
Lachgar’s case should be a reminder to us all in the UK that once we begin policing what we wear, outright censorship follows. Read more here. ([link removed])
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The world is becoming more authoritarian and our work calling out human rights abuses and promoting freedom of expression in countries such as Bahrain, Australia and the UK has never been more important.
By supporting Index on Censorship today, you can help us in our work with censored artists, jailed musicians, journalists under threat and dissidents facing torture or worse.
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Photos: (Supreme Court of the United Kingdom) Jay Galvin/CC BY 2.0; (Activist Betty Lachgar) Index on Censorship, vol.55 no.1
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