Bahrain Mirror: British daily The Guardian said in a report published Friday (January 13, 2017), that, "The UK government is facing fresh questions about Britain's aid strategy after it emerged that a controversial multi-million pound program of support for Bahrain's security and justice system is being bolstered this year, even as the Gulf state reverses reforms to a key intelligence agency accused of torture."

"Data provided under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that Bahraini authorities will this year receive a further £2m of British funding, including aid money drawn from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF), a pot of aid money currently the focus of an investigation by UK MPs", the Guardian noted in its report. 

MPs probing the CSSF, a financial pool worth more than £1bn a year, expressed frustration after an evidence session with the national security strategy committee in which they questioned Mark Lyall Grant, the national security adviser to the prime minister. The MPs said he provided scant details about how the money is spent.

During the session, Labor MP Julian Lewis said there was "a high degree of ambiguity" about the status of the fund. He asked: "Shouldn't we make up our minds ... that either the expenditure of £1.1bn in this financial year will be disclosed in full to this committee, or shall we tear up the fiction that we are in any way able to hold you to account as to how you are spending this very large sum of money?"

Human rights campaigners have expressed concerns that funding projects through the CSSF raises the risk of UK complicity in abuses, or involvement in the whitewashing of those abuses. NGOs have privately expressed reservations about the lack of transparency surrounding how the reserves are spent. One international NGO described the funding as "a black hole".

Human rights group Reprieve said of UK aid to Bahrain: "It's troubling that the government sees fit to keep spending taxpayers' money on these programs, given such apparently poor results - and given the clear risk of complicity in abuse. If ministers are determined to wave through more security aid to Bahrain, then they must urgently make that funding conditional on an end to the worst abuses - including the politically motivated use of the death penalty."

Responding during the evidence session to a question from MPs about the assessment of human rights risks in projects in Bahrain, Lyall Grant said: "There will be occasions when the National Security Council decides that we should discontinue a program. We did that with one of the prison programs in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, for instance. But in Bahrain those programs are seen to have some effect and we are continuing with them."

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "The UK continues to work closely with the government of Bahrain to encourage progress on human rights, which includes building effective and accountable institutions, strengthening the rule of law, and police and judicial reform. Any assistance we give to the government of Bahrain complies with the UK's domestic and international human rights obligations."

Sayed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said a new environment for abuse was being created after the Bahraini government moved last week to return the powers of arrest to its National Security Agency. An independent inquiry commission backed by the UK had called for the agency, accused of being central to torture at the height of the 2011 Arab spring protests, to be deprived of those powers.

"We have been saying for a long time now that the UK should suspend its technical assistance to Bahrain until guarantees including the visit by the UN special rapporteur on torture are enforced," said Alwadaei.

"Without such guarantees, the UK's work with the ombudsman and police is just window-dressing. The UK continues to be part of the human rights problem in Bahrain, when it should be a part of the solution."

Arabic Version