PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
Adequacy of British assistance to reduce death sentences and torture in Bahrain (16 January 2020)

That this House strongly condemns the Government of Bahrain’s increased use of capital punishment, including the recent re-imposition of death sentences against dissidents, Mohammed Ramadhan and Husain Moosa; is concerned that that their sentences were based heavily on confessions extracted under torture and that the prosecution failed to present any physical or forensic evidence; that the defendants’ allegations of torture were corroborated by a medical report; expresses further concern about the Foreign Office’s failure to acknowledge evidence of torture and due process violations despite British diplomats monitoring the trial; is aware that there are twelve political prisoners on death row in Bahrain, of whom eight are at risk of imminent execution, having exhausted all legal remedies; that a further twelve individuals are sentenced to death on non-political charges; joins the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions in deeming the execution of five political prisoners in Bahrain since January 2017 to be arbitrary killings, including those of Ali Al-Arab and Ahmed Al-Malali in July 2019; raises concerns about the failure of British taxpayer funding to strengthen the rule of law in Bahrain; reminds the UK Government of its commitment to abolish the death penalty globally, especially given the UK’s prolonged involvement in Bahrain’s so-called justice reform; calls upon the UK Government to condemn the torture of Ramadhan and Moosa and their deeply unfair trial and to suspend its training to bodies accused of human rights violations pending an evaluation of evidence of genuine reform.

Sponsored by:
Chris Law (Scottish National Party)