Bahrain’s government uses events like the F1 to Sportswash its authoritarianism ― this year it invested in a pro cycling team and it now hosts an international ironman triathlon. And there was the bid for the FIFA presidency by the ruling family’s Sheikh Salman, which ended in humiliation after sports journalists exposed his failure to protect athletes targeted during the the 2011 pro-democracy uprising.

But since last year’s Grand Prix in Bahrain the human rights situation there has plummeted dangerously. Executions have resumed this year for the first time since 2010, and two policemen have been killed. Bahraini security forces have killed three men attempting to flee the country, and fatally shot a protestor. Last week the King approved an amendment to the constitution to allow civilians to be tried in military courts. Meanwhile prominent human rights activists remain in prison. News emerged this week that leading dissident Abdulhadi Al Khawaja has embarked on a hunger strike in jail to protest oppressive prison conditions, and that his colleague Nabeel Rajab has been transferred from prison to hospital to prison and back to hospital again following surgery, and denied adequate care. Peaceful political opposition leaders remain in jail.

None of this is the fault of the sports reporters covering this week’s F1, but there a couple of questions they might take a moment to consider:

...If peaceful protestors are targeted in Bahrain in the coming days because it’s the F1 weekend, isn’t that part of the sports story too?

...Should those reporters who get in try to meet the dissidents their colleagues can’t?