Dubai: Bahrain announced on Saturday that it had deported US filmmaker Jen Marlowe, accusing her of falsifying her visa application and shooting a documentary without permission.
Marlowe, a Seattle-based documentary filmmaker who arrived in the country around a week ago, told immigration officials that she had come “to help a friend who had recently had a baby”, the information affairs authority said.
“But investigation showed the names and addresses she gave were fabricated... While in Bahrain she has been shooting a documentary film that requires a proper visa permitting one to work in the kingdom,” it added.
“Marlowe is affiliated with members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISI) organisation, some of whom had resorted to similar illegal entry tactics in February of this year,” the Bahraini authority said.
The filmmaker was briefly detained and questioned before being flown to Jordan.
In February, Manama announced the expulsion of 12 activists, most of them US citizens, who had come from abroad to participate in “illegal” protests to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of anti-government protests. The Bahraini authorities rejected a visa request by AFP and other international media to cover the occasion.
