British MPs from various parties accused their country’s government of financing countries that launder human rights violations, through secret payments. This came in an article published by the British newspaper ‘The Independent’.
The same event was referred to by the Financial Times in a report, about British MPs calling for the government to suspend “secret” funding programs worth millions of pounds to the Arab Gulf states, which may expose the UK to the risk of complicity in human rights violations.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group, including Conservative MP Peter Bottomley, revealed in its report that government funds were used to send £53.4 million to the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries between 2016 and 2020.
The MPs regretted that the Kingdom had repeatedly ignored evidence of the involvement of recipients of UK funding in the Gulf in human rights violations, such as the UK’s funding to Saudi Arabia, which consequently supports bodies accused of violating international law and whitewashing war crimes in Yemen.
The representatives indicated that organizations that have lost credibility internationally with regard to human rights benefit from this funding, such as the Office of the Ombudsman in Bahrain affiliated with the Ministry of Interior and the National Institute for Human Rights.
The Independent considers that the warning by British MPs comes as the UK seeks closer ties with Gulf states after Brexit – and amid fears that pressure to find alternatives to trade with the EU could push Britain to cooperate with countries with poor records in the EU in the field of human rights, and that according to NGOs, the countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council have poor human rights records.
