About Us
Bahrain Watch is an independent research and advocacy organisation that seeks to promote effective, transparent and accountable governance in Bahrain.
Bahrain Watch was formed in February 2012 by a group of researchers and activists with personal and academic ties to Bahrain. Following the February 2011 uprising and subsequent security crackdown in Bahrain, the government presented a narrative for the international media claiming that it had instituted a number of human rights and democratic reforms. The initial aim of Bahrain Watch was to investigate and assess those claims by providing a web-platform that collates and documents publicly available evidence and presents it in a digestible manner to the public.
Since then, Bahrain Watch’s goals have broadened to include research and advocacy on all forms of governance in Bahrain, including political reform, economic development and security.
Key Members
gro.hctawniarhab@aala
Ala'a Shehabi is a British-born Bahraini researcher and writer. She has a PhD from Imperial College London, and is a former policy analyst at Rand Europe, and an economics lecturer at the Bahrain Institute for Banking and Finance. She is currently an ACSS research fellow. She lives between Bahrain and the UK.
gro.hctawniarhab@llib
Bill Marczak is a PhD candidate in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He lived in Bahrain for four years prior to starting his higher education in the United States.
gro.hctawniarhab@cram
Marc Owen Jones is a PhD candidate in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University in the UK. His PhD thesis is on the different strategies of policing dissent in Bahrain. Marc lived in Bahrain for 14 years before moving to the UK to commence his higher education.
gro.hctawniarhab@dahaf
Fahad Desmukh is a journalist based in Karachi, Pakistan working as a correspondent for PRI’s ‘The World’ news radio show. He grew up in Bahrain and was among the first generation of bloggers in the country writing under the pseudonym "Chan'ad Bahraini."
gro.hctawniarhab@nhoj
John Horne is a PhD candidate in visual culture at the University of Birmingham. His thesis is on the "Western" spectator and the Arab Spring. He is the community director of EA WorldView, where he is also a staff writer.
gro.hctawniarhab@ader
Reda Al-Fardan is the Bahraini software developer behind Bahrain Map. A CPISP recipient, he received his BA in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cambridge, and his MSc in Polymer Technology from Loughborough University. He was previously a risk analyst at Gulf International Bank before joining A.T. Kearney as a management consultant in the Gulf region.
Finances
Bahrain Watch is entirely self-funded by its five members and receives no outside funding. The members work on an unpaid voluntary basis.
If, in the future, Bahrain Watch chooses to seek outside funding for its work, it will be disclosed on this website in a timely manner.