Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of reports of alleged use of torture and forced confessions in Bahrain.

The Government monitors events in Bahrain closely. We regularly raise human rights concerns with the Bahraini authorities in private and in public and will continue to do so. We encourage the Government of Bahrain to deliver on its international and domestic human rights commitments.

We encourage those with concerns about the treatment of prisoners in detention to report these to the relevant human rights oversight bodies. We encourage these oversight bodies to carry out swift and thorough investigations.