(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Foreign Office minister Lord Howell told the House of Lords that the government does not know the number of political prisoners jailed by the al-Khalifa regime but there are a long list of concerns about the military trials including those of the 48 medical staff that have been raised with the Manama government.
“We have made no assessment of the exact number of political prisoners currently held in Bahraini detention centres. We remain deeply concerned by the imprisonment of leading moderate politicians and the alleged mistreatment of detainees,” Howell said.
Howell whose government faces accusations of treating uprisings in Arab nations differently based on London's relationship with their governments claimed the British government is pressing Bahrainis “to meet all their human rights obligations”.
“Our primary concerns in the legal process have been the methods of arrest, early access to legal counsel, allegations of abuse in detention, methods of interrogation, alleged coerced confessions, the charges brought against defendants, and the implications that medical professionals may not be allowed to carry out their duties without fear of recrimination,” he said.
Howell also said that Foreign Secretary William Hague voiced concerns about the trials of physicians and other health workers in Bahrain during a meeting with the Persian Gulf state's Crown Prince on May 25.
Howell insisted that the British government has not relented on the issue saying “our ambassador continues to raise our concerns at the highest level with the Government of Bahrain to ensure that due process is followed in all cases and that human rights
are fully respected”.
This comes as London is under pressure from human rights groups and anti-Bahraini-regime activists for adopting double standards in its treatment of uprisings in countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya compared with Bahrain.
Britain's Middle East minister Alistair Burt has indirectly confirmed that the Saudi troops involved in suppressing Bahrain protest used British vehicles.
“We have seen no evidence that UK equipment and vehicles supplied to the Saudi Arabian forces were used in a repressive way in Bahrain since we have seen no evidence that Saudi or other (P)GCC forces have done anything other than safeguard installations in Bahrain,” Burt told the House of Commons answering a related question.
This is while the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) launched a legal challenged against the British government for breaching its own export criteria by continuing to sell military equipment to Saudi Arabia.
The CAAT said London is obliged to withhold export licenses for military equipment to countries where “there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression”.
The campaign group said there is no doubt there was a “risk” of the equipment being used for “internal repression” when Saudi troops were called to Bahrain to counter demonstrators.
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