Gulf Strategy Fund and potential rights violations against death row inmates in Bahrain

That this House raises grave concerns following the 10 October 2022 report from the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and Human Rights Watch which documents a litany of human rights violations against death row inmates in which recipients of UK taxpayer-funded Gulf Strategy Fund (GSF) programmes, including Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Interior Ombudsman and Special Investigations Unit, are implicated; is further concerned at evidence that Bahrain’s courts have sentenced defendants to death following manifestly unfair trials, based on confessions allegedly coerced through torture and ill-treatment; decries that those courts dismissed credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment instead of investigating them and routinely violated defendants’ rights to fair trials; highlights that persistent rights violations which contravene international law underlie the convictions and death sentences of cases of eight men, who are among 26 on death row in Bahrain at imminent risk of execution; expresses further concern that Bahrain’s judiciary and oversight bodies implicated in perpetrating violations against torture victims sentenced to death benefit from UK taxpayer-funded programmes under the GSF, and did so at the time of their abuse; reiterates calls to suspend the GSF pending an independent inquiry into its programmes’ implications in rights violations against death row inmates; urges the Government to implement this report’s recommendations, publicly condemn the death sentences of Maher Abbas al-Khabbaz, Sayed Ahmed al-Abar, Zuhair Ebrahim Jasim Abdullah, Husain Ebrahim Ali Husain Marzooq, Husain Moosa, Mohamed Ramadhan, Husain Ali Mehdi and Salman Isa Ali Salman; and calls upon Bahrain to release them.