Kim Kardashian recently traveled to Bahrain to promote milkshakes. Marc Lynch sees her visit as part of the regime's PR campaign:
Bahrain's regime has focused far more over the last year and a half on a public relations pushback than on addressing its real political deterioriation and human rights disaster. It has spent heavily on PR firms to rehabilitate its image, and anyone who writes or tweets about Bahrain has become quite accustomed to the inevitable responses which follow.
Holding the controversial Formula One race in April was a key part of the attempt to demonstrate to the international community that Bahrain had returned to normal — a portrayal somewhat undermined by the burning tires, furious activists, and critical media coverage which followed. (My all time favorite video response remains this "Epic Fail" from Katy Perry.) This Index on Censorship story suggests that whatever her personal intentions, Kardashian's visit falls into the same category of attempts to rehabilitate Bahrain's image without any meaningful policy changes. That protests and tear gas disrupted the international media coverage of her visit as well is therefore in some ways a promising sign that the reality of Bahrain's ongoing repression and failure to deal honestly with its recent past has not yet been washed away.
The Dish 