Reporters without Borders realeased the following report today:

The Manama Formula One Grand Prix finally went ahead despite the all the tension and protests in Bahrain, but many foreign and local journalists paid the price of the government’s determination to prevent video and photo coverage of the crackdown taking place away from the race track.

British TV reporter Jonathan Miller and his Channel 4 News crew were briefly chased by riot police vehicles and then arrested on 22 April after being spotted filming a protest in a village on the Budaiya road. Miller was able to speak to Channel 4 News by phone while held and said the police had been “very aggressive” during the arrest. They were released that night and deported. Their Bahraini driver was also released.

Like many other media, Channel 4 News had not obtained press visas and had been forced to work without accreditation during the Grand Prix.

Colin Freeman of Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper, who had press accreditation, and his fixer, the blogger and activist Mohammed Hasan, were arrested at a checkpoint at Sanabis, northwest of the capital, on 22 April and were taken to the Exhibition Centre police station, where they were released a few hours later without being charged. Hassan had already been arrested the previous day while with foreign reporters.

Two Japanese journalists working for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper were also arrested in Sanabis and were taken to the Exhibition Centre police station, where they were released two and a half hours later.

Mazen Mahdi, a Bahraini photographer working for the German news agency DPA, was briefly arrested while covering a protest in the village of Belad Al-Qadeem. The police threatened to smash his camera. Video of the incident: http://t.co/snOg2WsC

Rasmus Tantholdt of Denmark’s TV2 was denied entry to Bahrain on 21 April for the second time in 24 hours despite having a ticket to the Grand Prix. He had covered demonstrations in support of detained human rights activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja in Bahrain two weeks before.

View the original report here.