Mohammed al-Maskati

Mohamed al-Maskati
Mohammed al-Maskati, 2011
Native name	محمد عبدالنبي المسقطي
Nationality	Bahrain
Occupation	Bahraini activist
Title	President of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR)
Website	http://byshr.org Twitter account

Mohammed Abdulnabi al-Maskati (Arabic:محمد عبدالنبي المسقطي) is a Bahraini human rights activist and digital security consultant with Front Line Defenders for Middle East and North Africa. He is the founder of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR), a leading group in the 2011-2012 Bahraini uprising.

Al-Maskati serves as the president of the BYSHR, an organization which "organises training workshops, monitors and documents human rights violations and participates in forming a regional network for young human rights activists in eight Arab countries". As part of the group's work, al-Maskati lobbied for the freedom of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer as well as reporting on domestic human trafficking in Bahrain.

In June 2005, the BYSHR attempted to register as a non-governmental organization with the Bahraini government, but was refused. When the group nonetheless continued its work, al-Maskati was summoned to court in 2007 on charges of leading an "unregistered organization", which carried a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment. The International Freedom of Expression Exchange issued an appeal for a letter writing campaign on his behalf, describing the arrest as "just the latest example of the government using judicial measures to silence human rights activists". Al-Maskati's trial was later postponed until 2009, In June 2010, al-Maskati was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of 500 Bahraini dinar (About 1000 Euros). The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights protested the sentence, describing it as "a continuation of the Authority's policy in Bahrain to restrict civil society institutions".

In February 2011, Bahrain saw a series of large-scale pro-democracy protests as part of the international Arab Spring. Al-Maskati and the BYSHR were active at Pearl Roundabout in the capital of Manama, which quickly became a center for the protests. Among the protestors' demands were a new constitution and the replacement of Prime Minister Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa—an uncle of Bahrain's king who had held the post since 1971—with an elected official. In March, he was named in a widely circulated text message death threat, causing Amnesty International to call on Bahraini authorities to investigate and provide him police protection. As a result, he received a number of death threats by telephone.