It pays to be quiet

The British Royal Navy will set up a permanent base in Bahrain. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond announced a new deal with Bahrain for a £15m naval base, that will be able to host destroyers and the Royal Navy's powerful new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers, which are currently under construction. Bahrain will pay most of the cost of the base.

The naval base decision comes only a month after a damning report from influential House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee  found that there was “little or no evidence that Bahrain has made enough progress in implementing political reform and safeguarding human rights.” The reported added that Foreign Office should have “bitten the bullet and designated Bahrain as country of concern”.

Nabeel Rajab, an opposition politician and president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said: “This base is a reward to the British government for the silence they provided on human rights abuses in Bahrain, and for their continued support of this tyrannical and corrupt regime. The money to be paid by Bahrain to build this base, in fact, is for buying the silence of the British Government and support for the regime and against our struggle for justice, democracy and human rights."

During the Arab Spring in 2011 the UK and US supported Bahrain’s Sunni-dominated government after it violently put down protests by the majority Shia population. Troops from neighbouring Saudi Arabia helped smash protesters who were calling for an end to the domination of the ruling al-Khalifa dynasty, which has controlled the country for more than 200 years. According to Amnesty International UK there are still “ongoing human rights concerns” over arbitrary arrests, crackdowns on protests, torture and political prisoners in the country.