När socialdemokratin och dess utrikesledning under Urban Ahlin gjort sig till förkämpar för den arabiska vårens frihetsrörelser kommer partiet även agera för frihetsrörelser på den arabiska halvön. Visst vill vi agera för att stödja utvecklingen mot demokrati och mänskliga rättigheter i länder som Bahrain vars folks kamp för mänskliga rättigheter brutalt krossades av Saudiska trupper tränade förövrigt av samma brittiska militär som nu befriar Libyen.
För det är väl inte så att den nuvarande socialdemokratiska utrikesledningen tillämpar selektiv kamp för mänskliga rättigheter beroende på vad som är mest politisk fördelaktigt.
Andra bloggar att läsa:
Utrikes- och säkerhetspolitik: Var är ledarskapet? | Mitt i steget, Johan Westerholms blogg,
UK training Saudi forces used to crush Arab spring | World news | The Observer
Britain
is training Saudi Arabia’s national guard – the elite security force
deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order
enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has
outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office
recognises that the kingdom’s human rights record is ”a major concern”.
In
response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the
Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run
courses for the national guard in ”weapons, fieldcraft and general
military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal,
search, public order and sniper training”. The courses are organised
through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National
Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under
the command of a brigadier.
The MoD response, obtained yesterday
by the Observer, reveals that Britain sends up to 20 training teams to
the kingdom a year. Saudi Arabia pays for ”all BMM personnel, as well as
support costs such as accommodation and transport”.
Bahrain’s
royal family used 1,200 Saudi troops to help put down demonstrations in
March. At the time the British government said it was ”deeply concerned”
about reports of human rights abuses being perpetrated by the troops.
”Britain’s
important role in training the Saudi Arabian national guard in internal
security over many years has enabled them to develop tactics to help
suppress the popular uprising in Bahrain,” said Nicholas Gilby of the
Campaign Against Arms Trade.
Kommer det ett uttalande från den socialdemokratiska riksdagsgruppen som fördömer dödandet av oskyldiga demonstranter och tortyr av demokratiska aktivister även i Bahrain? Likt vad Times rapporterar nedan.
För det är väl inte så att socialdemokratins stöd för frihet och mänskliga rättigheter tillämpas selektivt beroende på om man kan plocka poäng på Carl Bildt i riksdagen och de borgerliga och vilka länder de ledande västmakterna bland våra nator allierade anser vara rätt för militära interventioner?
Boy, 14, Dies in Bahrain as Security Forces Break Up Protest – NYTimes.com
A 14-year-old boy was killed Wednesday as security forces in Sitra, Bahrain, broke up a small protest. Witnesses said the boy was struck in the head by a tear gas canister that the security forces fired directly into the crowd at close range, and died shortly afterward at a hospita
The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights published photographs of the boy, whom they identified as Ali Jawad Ahmad, and of the blood-stained sidewalk where the episode occurred.
In a report by the state-run news agency, the government confirmed the death of the boy but said there had been “no reported police action against lawbreakers in Sitra” that morning, “except dispersing a small group of around 10 people at 1:15 a.m.” The Ministry of the Interior, which confirmed the boy’s name, offered a reward of more than $26,000 for information about those responsible for his death.
