HUMAN rights and the position of women in Gulf states were left out of a landmark speech by Theresa May to the region’s leaders yesterday.
The Prime Minister yesterday became the first woman to address the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Bahrain.
Speaking in the capital Manama, May, who has vowed to “turbo-charge” the UK’s economic relationship with the region, had been urged by human rights groups to push for change on several fronts, including freedom of speech and the use of the death penalty.
But she made just one reference to “social reforms” in a lengthy speech and gave no overt mention of the rights of women or human rights.
Instead, May praised the nations – in which all sex outside marriage is illegal and the death penalty can be imposed for consensual gay sex – on their “bold vision” for “fundamental and lasting change” and focused on economic opportunities, defence spending and international cooperation on counter-terrorism.
Flanked by the kings of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and the leaders of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, May said: “In challenging times, you turn to your oldest and most dependable friends. That is the spirit in which I come here today.”
Turning to regional tensions, May said she was “clear-eyed” about the threat posed by Iran, condemning the country’s “aggressive” actions in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
However, she made no mention of allegations of war crimes by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, said by organisations including Amnesty International to have been committed using UK-made munitions.
Instead, the Tory leader laid out plans to “invest in hard power” by spending more than £3 billion on defence in the Gulf in the next ten years – more than any other region in the world.
More UK armed forces personnel, warships and aircraft will be based there on operations than anywhere else, with a new British Defence Staff based in Dubai to coordinate regional activities.
A new joint working group on counter-terrorism and border security will also be established, alongside further efforts to “protect critical national infrastructure, facilitate faster intelligence sharing on suspected foreign terrorist fighters and implement traveller screening systems to detect terrorists attempting to pass through any GCC airport”.
Telling the leaders “your prosperity is also our prosperity”, May said Gulf investment was “helping to regenerate cities from Aberdeen to Teeside and from Manchester to London” and emphasised plans to make London “one of the great capitals of Islamic finance anywhere in the world”, She added: “As Britain leaves the European Union so we intend to take a leap forward, to look outwards and seek to become the most committed and most passionate advocate of free trade in the world."
“Free trade makes us all richer. It creates jobs. It increases investment. It improves productivity. It transforms living standards and creates opportunities for all of our citizens.
“Nowhere is that more important than here with our friends and allies in the Gulf.”
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, said: “Theresa May talks about being the ‘partner of choice’ for reform in the Gulf, but we’ve already seen what that means in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where the UK has been involved for years.
“British engagement has meant managing repression instead of ending it, shielding the country from UN probes into its violations, and being silent on the cases of rights campaigners.
“The UK has already helped secure a seat for Saudi Arabia at the UN Human Rights Council and sold weapons which the Saudis have used to bomb schools and hospitals in Yemen.
“The British Government has for years helped sustain repression and impunity in the Gulf under the guise of its partnerships with them, and that looks set to continue under Theresa May’s new vision.”
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