Tag: Bahrain

When James Cleverly was reappointed foreign secretary last October, he tweeted he was “honoured” to be “continuing to protect UK interests overseas and support to our friends and allies around the world, defending democracy and freedom”. What he’s been doing tells a different story. Two days after tweeting of his pursuit of democracy, he was […]

A former Home Office minister and a pro-democracy activist who was tortured in the Gulf have both slammed Britain’s new head of state over his extensive contact with Arab royalty. Research by Declassified UK has found that King Charles held 120 meetings with ruling families from eight Middle Eastern monarchies since popular protests rocked the […]

“When a country is at war, it is not right to race there.” That was Max Verstappen’s commendable reaction to Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.  The sentiment was shared by almost all his fellow Formula One drivers, who posed for a picture in front of a Ukrainian flag wearing “No War” T-shirts. F1 organisers […]

Declassified has discovered a secret UK government committee that held meetings with an arms dealer, former oil executive and ex-spy — but parliament is told there are ‘no records’ of what was discussed.

Five highly repressive Gulf states – Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — have been able to invest at least £140bn in Britain. The figure is more than five times larger than Russian investments in the UK, which have, by contrast, received sustained criticism in the media and government.

Seven members of Britain’s armed forces won an award for their ‘vital operational’ work supporting the US military after it killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike last year, Declassified has found.

As new evidence emerges of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed holding his adult daughters ‘hostage’, Declassified has found that Queen Elizabeth has met the repressive leader on at least 10 occasions since the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’.

The queen’s second son has held 70 meetings with repressive Middle East monarchies in the decade since the Arab Spring uprisings. Most meetings took place after Prince Andrew’s role as official trade envoy ended in 2011 amid the Epstein scandal, with UK diplomatic support for his Gulf trips lasting into 2019.

The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has held 95 meetings with eight repressive monarchies in the Middle East since the ‘Arab Spring’ protests of 2011 threatened their power. Charles has played a key role in promoting £14.5-billion worth of UK arms exports to these regimes in the last decade.

Britain’s royal family has met members of autocratic Middle Eastern monarchies nearly once a fortnight since the crackdown on ‘Arab Spring’ protests began 10 years ago this month. Their visits have often coincided with human rights abuses in the Gulf, where pro-democracy activists are punished for criticising the Windsor ties to regimes.

As two political prisoners face execution in Bahrain, the country’s repressive justice system remains rooted in the career of Ian Henderson – one of the most notorious police officers the British empire ever produced, who caused suffering to scores of Bahrainis including members of my family.

The Saudi-led coalition has received British training on naval tactics that could be used for blockading Yemen, an embargo which UN experts have described as ‘unlawful’. Amnesty International says the new information is ‘deeply concerning’.

British policy centred on maintaining internal ‘stability’ in the Gulf states and on retaining access to key resources upon which its global power relied.

The British military and intelligence establishment is playing a key role in fortifying the repressive regime in Bahrain, it can be revealed.