Syria, Bahrain expose UK’s hypocrisy

People have taken to the streets in Bahrain to demand equal rights by the Sunni monarchy as well as the release of political prisoners.

But, the regime has been violently clamping down on pro-democracy protests for the past 18 months backed by troops from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, including the United Arab Emirates.

All these come as Western leaders, the UK authorities, in particular, have effectively closed their eyes to what is happening in the tiny island nation, amid other concerns in the region.

As far as the Syrian issue is concerned, British authorities have put their money where their mouth is, giving five million pounds in so-called non-lethal aid to those seeking to topple President Assad’s government.

This is while they remain conspicuously silent about the ongoing human rights crisis which is happening less than a thousand miles away in Bahrain.

“The regime [of Bahrain] has not spared any means of repression; torture has not ceased at all”, says Saeed Shehabi, Arab Islamic Foundation.

“And that includes testimonies of people who were just released over the last day or two; arbitrary detentions have not stopped, the use of sectarianism as weapon is there; the regime’s troops use tear gas, kidnap people from villages and beat them up, torture them in farms but not in torture chambers”, he added.

Bahraini people’s revolution against their repressive regime is dubbed forgotten, because it is almost ignored by the international community, and underreported in the mainstream media outlets.

Since February last year there have almost been daily anti-regime protests, and the resulting crackdown has seen around a hundred killed, with 1,600 in jail including 60 children, and four of Bahrain’s most prominent human rights activists, all that in a country of only one and a half million.

However, the UK government says nothing about the ongoing human rights crisis in Bahrain, because they are allied with the dictator of the country as well as with the US government which has vested interests there.

But, analysts believe this silence will have a catastrophic impact on the future of the UK government and its allies.

Eric Lubbock, Lord Avebury, chairman, APPG on Human Rights, said that “….in the long term this is harmful to our interests because sooner or later all the monarchies are going to disappear in a puff of smoke and then regimes that succeed them will not be friendly to a country that aided their repressors.”

Actually, Britain has not only failed to condemn the Bahraini regime’s atrocities against its own people, but it has been giving host to the regime’s dictator and his affiliates during this summer.

King Hammad was invited to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in May. His eldest son had a meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron at Downing Street. And his youngest son, who sanctioned the torture of dissident Bahraini athletes, was at the opening of London’s Olympic Games.

Despite the brutal crackdown between July and September last year, meanwhile, the UK sold 2.2 million pounds worth of arms to the Bahraini regime. Shortly after that, the UK’s most famous military training school accepted a three million pound donation from the king of Bahrain and the Metropolitan Police’s former assistant commissioner was appointed as an advisor on security to the regime with no objections from the UK government.

All these continue to ruin the British government’s domestic and international credibility, according to Bahrain campaigners.

“It’s only when they stand up in public and say we oppose this torture, we oppose this autocratic regimes and we demand democracy, only then will the British government have any credibility whatsoever, and at this moment it now has none”, said Rodney Shakespeare, chairman, CTTE Against Torture in Bahrain.