National Institution for Human Rights – Kingdom of Bahrain only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect the rights and reputation of others, national security, public order, health, or morals. In addition, the Covenant guarantees that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching. 6. Accordingly, the freedom of speech includes the right of any individual to hold opinions without interference. This freedom extends to include the right to change one’s opinion at any time and for any reason of his choice with complete freedom, as well as the freedom not to disclose one’s opinion. Harassment of an individual because of his opinions, or intimidating or stigmatizing him, including by arrest, detention, trial, or imprisonment, is a violation of the basic rules of freedom of opinion. In any event, freedom of opinion should not be subject to any exceptions or restrictions whatsoever. 7. The right to expression is to seek, receive and impart various forms of information and ideas, to others, regardless of frontiers, including the right to political discourse, public comments, polls, discussing human rights issues, the press, cultural and artistic expression, teaching, and religious discourse, whether this right is exercised in spoken or written form, sign language, or by expression in books, newspapers, leaflets, posters, banners and other documents. It also includes all audio-visual media, as well as electronic methods of expression. 8. However, the exercise of the right of expression requires a legal framework to prevent its abuse or arbitrary use. As such, the state is entrusted with the protection of this right. In order to strike balance between the right of individuals to expression and the restrictions that may be imposed to prevent its misuse or abuse, there are minimum restrictions or exceptional controls for the exercise of this right. These restrictions should be prescribed by law, should aim to fulfill a lawful objective, should be necessary for the democratic society, and should ensure proper use and exercise of the right rather than expropriate such rights. This is in line with Article 31 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bahrain, which states that: “The Public rights and freedoms stated in the present Constitution may only be regulated or limited by or in accordance with the law, and such regulation or limitation may not prejudice the essence of the right or freedom”. 9. As regards the institutional structure, the Supreme Authority for Media and Communication was established under Decree No. 47 of 2013. The Authority is responsible for proposing the information and communication policy in the Kingdom of Bahrain, following up its implementation, proposing the controls and rules necessary to promote the media and communication profession, developing standards of supervision and control over media content and advertisements in various media and communication outlets, in addition to receiving complaints about media content, and reconciling the relevant parties concerning these issues. Accordingly, the Royal Decree No. 29 of 2013 was issued to compose the Authority of a chairman and nine members of media and communication figures. 10. In compliance with the recommendation stated in the BICI report No. 1722/h on “Cancelling or mitigating the judgments convicting persons accused of crimes related to freedom of political expression that do not include incitement to violence, and dropping the charges that have not been adjudicated against them”, the public prosecution, according to the aforementioned recommendation, reviewed the legal positions of the accused by dropping all charges related to freedom of 61