House of Lords written question – answered am ar 14 Mawrth 2013.
Lord Hylton
Crossbench
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make representations to the Government of Bahrain about the accountability of senior military and police officers, who were in charge when civilian demonstrators were killed or severely injured in 2011; and about publication of the official Bahraini report on those events.
Baroness Warsi
Senior Minister of State (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) (Jointly with the Department for Communities and Local Government), Senior Minister of State (Department for Communities and Local Government) (Faith and Communities) (also in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office)
We have made representations on numerous occasions to the Government of Bahrain on the need for accountability of officials who were involved in human rights abuses during the unrest in 2011. This was also recommended by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry.
The Bahrain Government established a special investigations unit to look into allegations of unlawful or negligent acts by rule of law officials, resulting in the deaths, torture or mistreatment of civilians. We welcome this. But we do have concerns that, due to a lack of reliable evidence, the current number of actual convictions of officials is low. There are a number of trials under way and we urge the authorities to ensure due process is followed at all times.
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No0 people think not
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