Bahrain: Prisoners Under Sentence of Death

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Bahraini Government have demonstrated a desire to improve. They want to have a free and robust judicial system, and we want to help them to do that. Through technical assistance, we will help to encourage improvements in the core institutions of Bahraini society.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Under Bahrain and Britain’s integrated activity fund, the special investigation unit in Bahrain has received UK taxpayer-funded training through the College of Policing, but that institution has now been shown to be complicit in the whitewashed investigation that led to these men’s death sentences being reimposed. Will the right hon. Gentleman now halt any support for the Bahraini oversight institutions, which have demonstrated that they do no more than facilitate the whitewashing of human rights abuses and allow an escalation in the usage of the death penalty?

[James Cleverly]

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not currently provide funding or training to the Bahraini Royal Academy of Policing. The UK has been providing a range of technical and practical assistance to the Government of Bahrain since 2013 to bring about improvements in the robustness of their oversight bodies. Where abuses have taken place, public servants have been brought to justice, and my understanding is that 97 police officers or prison officers have been brought to justice due in significant part to the oversight bodies that the UK Government have helped to strengthen and improve.