Bahrain Mirror- Exclusive: Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa issued a decree establishing and organizing the National Communication Centre, affiliated to the Minister of Information Affairs. The decree specified the duties and powers of the Centre. The center task is to unite public media and communication discourse, manage information in times of crisis and monitor internal and external news about Bahrain.

The establishment of a new center comes as the king cancels the Information Affairs Authority, and tasking the Ministry of Information Affairs to assume all the jurisdictions stipulated in the relevant applicable laws, edicts and regulations regarding information affairs, 6 years after the different accusations against the authority in failure, incitement and use of insulting media language.

The new center was also tasked to monitor, collect and analyze data and information and news about Bahrain at home and abroad, as an introduction to deal with them though governmental means of communication and information, as well as building ongoing relationships with the local, regional and international levels.

The decree allowed the new center to ask for the help of companies and experts to execute its job.

According to the decree, the new center will have to put new plans and strategies for the government media discourse, supervise its execution, institutionalize it, allow the concerned to reflect the local and international realities and identify the Government's priorities through communication channels.

Among the center's new tasks is developing a mechanism ensuring the Government information apparatuses integration and cooperation among them in preparing the media content and publishing it as well as ameliorating the social media outlets platforms.

Five directorates follow the center including the Directorate of Monitoring and Analysis and Directorate of Communication and Media Relations.

Tags: King, Minister of Information Affairs, Information Affairs Authority

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