Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy – Written Evidence (MID0008)

The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy is a London-based non-profit organisation which works to promote human rights and effective accountability in Bahrain. We engage with key international actors and governments to advocate for policies that support human rights in Bahrain.

This submission seeks to answer questions 1 and 6 of the inquiry, including an assessment of UK policy in Bahrain and the Gulf region. Bahrain is the clearest case study of the UK’s contradictory and controversial foreign policy in the region following the events of the Arab Spring.

What do you foresee are the key changes needed, or likely to come anyway, in Western, and especially UK, policy and perceptions towards the region?

1. In 2012, the UK began its technical assistance programme to Bahrain, providing support to the latter’s promises of reform following the government’s brutal response to Arab Spring protests in 2011, which witnessed torture and killings in police custody, unfair trials of civilians by military courts and extrajudicial killings. The UK has since administered over £5m towards projects which, on paper, aim to promote human rights, reform the justice system, establish oversight mechanisms and facilitate the inclusion of civil society.
2. However, BIRD has found these projects to be severely lacking in transparency and accountability, and have led the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to make poorly substantiated claims of human rights process, which the Bahraini government, with FCO help, have used to whitewash abuses.[1] There have been no conditions attached to these projects, and Bahrain is no closer to fulfilling international human rights standards. UN human rights special procedures have not been allowed to visit the country, despite seven outstanding visit requests.
3. The UK’s current approach has failed to address the situation in Bahrain. Over the past six months there has been an unprecedented crackdown on civil society in Bahrain in a manner unprecedented since the Arab Spring events of 2011. This has been subject to mounting international criticism.[2] Recent developments have included:

• Prominent human rights defender Nabeel Rajab currently faces up to 15 years’ imprisonment on expression-related charges for comments made on the social media platform Twitter in 2015. He faces an additional year in prison following the publication of his opinion piece by the New York Times, Letter from a Bahraini Jail.[3]
• Secular opposition politician Ebrahim Sharif was charged with inciting hatred against the government after giving an interview to the Associated Press in which he criticised Prince Charles’ November visit to Bahrain.[4]
• The leading opposition group and largest political society in the country, Al-Wefaq, was suspended and then dissolved in July 2016. In the 2010 elections they won over 60% of the vote. An appeal against their dissolution was rejected in September.
• There has been an increased campaign of harassment against Shia religious figures, including against Sheikh Isa Qassim, the most senior Shia cleric in the country, who was rendered stateless. Since June, over 60 clerics have been subject to questioning and prosecution for their sermons and participation in protests. In August, five UN special rapporteurs called on Bahrain to end its “persecution of Shias.”[5]
• The village of Duraz has been subjected to a physical and internet blockade since 20 June 2016, when peaceful protests began against the revocation of citizenship of senior cleric Sheikh Isa Qasim. Authorities have attempted to limit participation in the assembly by threatening protesters and restricting access to the village; the community of 20-30,000 have been collectively punished as a result.
• Over 20 human rights activists have been banned from travel, preventing them from engaging in international human rights events and attending two sessions of the UN Human Rights Council in June and September.

4. These developments were preceded by five years of security-oriented policies in Bahrain and the introduction of new laws criminalizing free expression, association and assembly. They undermine the April 2016 FCO Human Rights & Democracy Report, which lists Bahrain as a Priority Council, and states: “Overall, there was progress on human rights in Bahrain throughout 2015, although challenges remain. The government of Bahrain continued to take steps to implement its human rights and political reform agenda.” While the report’s finding preceded the listed events, that the FCO did not register these developments nor anticipate the escalation of human rights violations, in spite of the UK’s strongly-felt role in the country since 2012, represents a failure of the programme
5. It is clear that Bahrain is not improving or addressing its human rights record, despite continued UK government praise. UK government policies towards the country have been unsustainable and counterproductive, allowing Bahrain to continue rights violations with impunity. In June 2016, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture stated that the UK is allowing Bahrain to act with “impunity” as it “considers itself shielded” from international scrutiny.[6]
6. Regardless of stated intentions, the UK’s technical assistance package has thus largely served to undermine human rights and reinforce the status quo. The current crackdown is not a surprising development, but the logical conclusion of five years of Bahrain state policy focused on enlarging the security apparatus and restricting civil and political space. The underlying causes of the Arab Spring events of 2011 have gone unmet.

7. The UK is becoming increasingly isolated with its overt support for Bahrain. The escalation of human rights violations in 2016, after four years of British government support, should compel the UK to re-evaluate its approach to Bahrain and the Gulf states. Instead, the UK government has increased its reassurances towards Bahrain and its neighbours, expressed in a series of high-level royal and ministerial engagements in the country, including Prince Charles’ recent visit at the request of the FCO.[7]
8. The new Royal Navy base HMS Juffair can be seen as a creation of a hard power asset in the country. The announcement of the base in 2014 caused unprecedented anti-British protests in Bahrain. The vast majority of the construction project has been “gifted” by the Bahraini government, which can be seen as guaranteed political support and damages the UK’s ability to leverage for human rights reform.
9. The UK has maintained that its special access relationship with Bahrain is vital to promoting human rights causes through soft, or private diplomacy. The worsening human rights situation, after four years of deep UK involvement, shows that this policy has not worked.

What are the prospects for enhancing human rights in the region?

10. The negotiation of new free trade agreements (FTAs) resulting from the UK’s decision to leave the European Union can be seen to offer a renewed opportunity to reinvent their human rights policy in Bahrain.

11. From an economic perspective, Bahrain is the least important trade partner within the GCC, having the smallest economy, and currently experiencing a downturn. In 2015, bilateral trade with Bahrain was just 2% of the total trade with the GCC. Although it is speculated that the Prime Minister’s visit to Bahrain to participate in the GCC leaders’ summit will be an opportunity to explore a UK-GCC FTA, the UK is in a better bargaining position if it were to conduct itself through a series of bilateral agreements. Under this framework, it is feasible that human rights protections can be added as an increased method of leverage.

12. There is currently no political will in Bahrain for serious human rights reform. This is clear from the state’s policy and escalation in rights violations. As it stands, a continuation of UK policy through the technical assistance programme and through soft power diplomacy offers little prospect for enhancing human rights in Bahrain.

13. BIRD provides the following recommends for the consideration of the International Relations Committee to the UK government:

●        To revise and strengthen the human rights aspect of foreign policy in Bahrain and the Gulf region, and use it as a conditionality for current and future trade and defence relationships.

●        To suspend funding, support and training assistance to Bahrain until substantive and measurable reforms are met, including a visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture.

●        To set clear conditions and timescales for the Government of Bahrain within the technical assistance, with repercussions if the conditions are not met.

●        To publicly acknowledge and criticise negative human rights developments in the country, and call for the release of detained human rights defenders, journalists and political opposition.

●        Reject the “gifted” construction of the naval base and construct it using UK state funds, to avoid the perception that military relations mean guaranteed political support.

Submitted 18 Nov 2016