On Thursday, the thirtieth of March 2000, the founding committee of the Bahraini Journalists Association held its first meeting in the Graduate Club Hall in the presence of 24 journalists and journalists, namely: Anwar Abdul Rahman, Nabil Al -Hamar, d. Hilal Al -Shayji, Ali Sayyar, Ahmed Kamal, Ibrahim Bashmi, Issa Al -Shaiji, Hamad Al -Mannai, Ali Saleh, Khaled Al -Zayani, Saeed Muhammad, Abdullah Al -Ayoubi, Izz al -Din Al -Moayad, Abdullah Salman, Ali Al -Thawadi, Salman Al -Ajmi, Jalil Omar, Khalil Youssef, Ahmed Al -Bousa, Sawsan Al -Shaer, the child of the caliph, Mansour Radhi, Broen Nasrallah, and Issam Al -Mousawi.
The idea of establishing the Bahraini Journalists Association was raised the first thing that was presented in the seventies when a number of journalists, including the late Mahmoud Al -Murdi, held several meetings to establish the association, but the March 30 2000 meeting is the last one that crowned the efforts of years of work to turn the dream into reality.
During that meeting, the attendees who represented the founding committee discussed several topics, but the most prominent of which is the subject of preparing the statute and the internal regulations, accordingly, a committee was formed to place the system, and the meeting nominated nine names that seven names from among them to form a committee to develop the statute are: Khaled Al -Zayani, Ali Saleh, Hamad Al -Mannai, Issa Al -Shayji, Ibrahim Bashmi, Sawsan Al -Shaer, Abdullah Salman, Salman Al -Ajami.
The polling was conducted to elect seven members out of the nine, while 16 members were nominated, and a mini committee was formed that included Ezzedine Al -Moayad, Saeed Muhammad, Broen Nasrallah to count the results, and the results resulted in the following: Khaled Al -Zayani 13 votes, Hamad Al -Mannai 15 votes, Ali Saleh 5 votes, Issa Al -Shaiji 14 votes, Ibrahim Bashim 15 votes 15 votes, Salman Al -Ajmi 8 votes and the caliph’s girl 12 votes.
According to this, the statute of the statute of the membership of Khaled Al -Zayani, Issa Al -Shayji, Ibrahim Bashmi, Sawsan Al -Shaer, Abdullah Salman Hamad Al -Mannai and the child of the caliph. The committee held several meetings to set the statute that was approved at the meeting of the Constituent Committee and then submitted to the Ministry of Cabinet and Information Affairs attached to a request to publicize the association.
On the evening of May 10, 2000 AD, the Minister of Cabinet and Information Affairs, Mohamed Ibrahim Al -Mutawa, met with members of the committee in charge of publicizing the Bahraini Journalists Association, where they submitted to the minister a draft statute of the association that was approved by the founding committee of the Bahraini Journalists Association. The founding committee of the association held a meeting on the third of September 2000 to prepare for the association’s general assembly after the issuance of the ministerial decision to publicize the association on Tuesday, August 29, 2000 AD. During the meeting, a committee was formed that included: Mansour Radhi, Hamad Al -Mannai, Abdel Moneim Ibrahim and Salman Al -Ajmi, to prepare for the meeting of the founding general assembly, which was decided to hold Thursday morning corresponding to September 28, 2000 AD.
The preparatory committee addressed all journalists wishing to attend the general assembly meeting of the initiative to register their names with the members of the committee, with a subscription fee, provided that an appointment is set to finish receiving membership requests. The number of members whose applications were accepted to participate in the meeting of the founding general assembly of the association were closed with the closure of the nomination door on September 25, 241 members, while 23 applications were referred to the association’s board of directors to decide.
The Constituent Committee formed a committee to supervise the election process that included Ibrahim Bashmi, Abdel Jalil Omar, Ghassan Al -Shihabi, Anwar Abdel Rahman and Sawsan Al -Shaer. The Constituent Committee has set at ten o’clock in the morning on Thursday, September 28, 2000 AD until twelve o’clock as the date for the electoral process in the Alumni Club building in the presence of delegates from the Ministry of Cabinet and Information Affairs, the Arab Journalists Union, the Kuwait Journalists Association and the Journalists Association in the United Arab Emirates.
He was nominated for the presidency of the board of directors, Nabil Yaqoub Al -Hamr, while the board of directors was nominated by Issa Al -Shayji, Salman Al -Ajmi, Ahmed Kamal, the child of the caliph, Saeed Muhammad, Abdel -Moneim Ibrahim, Abdullah Al -Ayoubi, Abdul Rahman Saleh, Khalil Youssef, Saeed Al -Hamad, Ahmed Al -Bousa, Esmat Al -Mousawi, Nasser Al -Qallaf, Makki Hassan, Mansour Radhi, Abdullah Salman, Hafez Abdul Ghaffar, Adel Jabara.
The association’s board elections
Before the clock settled at ten in the morning of Thursday, the twenty -eighth of September 2000, the Graduate Club Hall was crowded with voters who were keen to participate in the election of the first board of directors of the Bahraini Journalists Association, where the participation rate reached 80 % and was not reported by the saying that the gathering was a beautiful wedding for the press that the journalists have long been waiting for, and that the preparation for this day and the method that has been followed since the foundation expressed the democratic values The civilization that characterizes workers in the fourth authority.
The meeting was held at the Graduate Club in the presence of the Secretary -General of the Arab Journalists Union, Salah al -Din Hafez, the Vice -President of the Federation, the President of the Kuwaiti Journalists Association, Ahmed Al -Behbehani, Secretary of Foreign Relations in the Federation, the Secretary of the Kuwaiti Journalists Association Fund, Adnan Al -Rashed, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Kuwaiti Journalists Association Nayef Al -Rikibi, and Fatima Matar from the Journalists Association in the Emirates, in addition to the delegates of the Ministry of Cabinet and Information Affairs Jamal Dawood and Khaled Abdel Ghaffar.
The process of sorting the votes lasted for two full hours, which culminated in the victory of eight of the nineteen members who had nominated themselves for the membership of the Board of Directors. Al -Busta is 69 votes, Abdel Ghaffar maintained 68 votes, while Nabil Al -Hamar, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al -Ayyam for Press, Publishing and Distribution, won the editor -in -chief of Al -Ayyam newspaper, headed by the association by acclamation.
241 journalists participated in the electoral process to elect 8 members among 20 journalists who nominated themselves to membership of the Board of Directors. Once the results were announced, the Secretary -General of the Arab Journalists Union described the elections as successful and disciplined, and conveyed the greetings and congratulations of the President of the Federation Ibrahim Nafi and members of the Federation’s administration to the Chairman of the Association’s Board of Directors and members who won and who did not win either.
The decision to publicize the association
The Minister of Ministers and Information Affairs of the year 2000 AD was issued on August 30, 2000 AD regarding the publication of the registration and summary of the statute of the Bahraini Journalists Association that was registered at the Ministry of Cabinet and Information Affairs, and the decision stipulated the following:
After reviewing the decree of Law No. 21 of 1989 AD, the issuance of the Associations, Social and Cultural Clubs Law and Special Bodies working in the field of youth, sports and private institutions, and on Ministerial Resolution No. 4 of 1991 AD regarding the licensing system for societies and cultural and technical clubs subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Information to raise money, and the statute of the Bahraini Journalists Association, the following decided:
Article 1:
The Bahraini Journalists Association was registered in a record of cultural and artistic societies and clubs under the supervision of the Ministry of Cabinet and Information Affairs.
Article 2:
This decision and the summary of the articles of association attached to the Official Gazette shall be published, and it is working on it from the date of its publication.
Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Information Mohamed Ibrahim Al -Mutawa
Issued on 1 Jumada al -Akhera 1421 AH – corresponding to August 30, 2000 AD
