UK urged to probe arms exports to Bahrain, Saudi

The UK Government has been urged to apply significantly more cautious judgements on the export of arms to authoritarian regimes such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

MPs said in a new report that the measures were needed to ensure the arms were not used for internal repression.

Both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were named on a list of "countries of concern" drawn up by the Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC) which has scrutinised in unprecedented detail the Government’s arms exports controls.

It showed that the UK has 97 current UK arms export licences to Bahrain and 288 to Saudi Arabia.

Since the Arab Spring, the UK government has had to revoke an unprecedented number of 158 arms export licences to countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the report said.

As a result, the Committees have recommended that the government should apply significantly more cautious judgements when considering arms export licence applications for goods to authoritarian regimes.

The Committees concluded that the Government's review of its policies and practices on arms exports following the Arab Spring should not have been carried out merely as "an internal review" and should instead have been the subject of public consultation. 

The Committees further said that while the Government’s introduction of a new licence suspension mechanism was welcome, this was not sufficient to ensure that arms exported from the UK are not used for internal repression overseas.

Sir John Stanley, the chairman of the Committees,  called the report "ground breaking".

In May, the United States said it will resume some military sales to Bahrain despite continuing human rights concerns in the Gulf kingdom.

The Obama administration said that certain sales would be allowed for Bahrain's defence force, coast guard and national guard, adding that there were still unresolved human rights issues.

Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it has deployed more troops in the oil-rich Eastern Province and cancelled some military leave amid worries of fresh unrest by Shi'ite Muslims in the kingdom and regional tensions.

A Saudi government source said that top commanders, in a directive issued on June 26, ordered extra security forces to be stationed in the kingdom's crude-producing east where the majority of the Saudi Shi'ite population live.