It isn't often that an Arab nation will hold an event where human rights hold center stage. Today and tomorrow, however, Bahrain is holding the first Human Rights International Film Festival, first of its kind of a Gulf Cooperation Council country. The festival coincides this year with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Israel's 60th anniversary this month and, this week, World Press Freedom Day.

Bahrain's festival is sponsored by the Bahrain Society for Public Freedom and Democracy Watch, with approval from Bahrain's King Hamad. The 27 films featured include entries from India, Japan, Pakistan, Canada, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, the United States, and Lebanon. But not Bahrain.

Bahrain has its own human rights problems. In February, Human Rights Watch reported on torture and abuse, physical and sexual, alleged by inmates held in Bahraini prisoners, and the Bahraini government's refusal to let independent physicians examine the prisoners. In 2007, the country resumed executions in murder and terrorism cases for the first time since 1977. The same year, two Bahrainis were imprisoned for distributing political leaflets, and were freed only after Human Rights Watch's intervention. In general, Bahrain's arbitrary detentions and suspension of basic civil rights has intensified in the last two years. And the country's political structure remains autocratic, with a minority Sunni family ruling over a majority Shiite population.

So why not a single film on human rights conditions in Bahrain on the festival's list? Festival director Nasser Burdestani was candid in his explanation: "We're not showing films from Bahrain for two reasons," he told Gulf Weekly. "One is that we don't have any films that in my opinion are good enough quality and the second is that it is the first festival and we don't want to show something relating to Bahrain and conflict with the government."

In fact, every film to be shown must be cleared by local authorities first. Among those Burdestani says he hopes will be screened is "Sous Les Bombes," a French film by Philippe Aractingi that won awards at the Venice, Sundance and Dubai film festivals. The film deals with the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006.

Full disclosure: Philippe and I were not just schoolmates at the Petit College in Beirut in the late 1960s, but close friends. Naturally, I'm rooting for him.

Meanwhile another Lebanese was roiling and riling Bahrainis on the eve of the festival. The Lusty and luscious Haifa Wehbe, one of Lebanon's bustiest voices and a Miss Lebanon runner up, was appearing in a singing engagement at Bahrain's Gulf Convention Center in her trademark skimps: loose and occasionally see-through green dress (green is the color of hope in Orthodox iconography, but also the color of Islam), and sparkling make-up to go along with her sparkling sarcasm.

Members of the Bahraini parliament had voted unanimously to ban the performance, thankfully to no avail. A few of them were almost certainly hiding in the audience. And Wahbe teased them, asking fans if she was allowed to love them back after all the love they professed to her.