Rights campaigners condemn UK queen for hosting king of Bahrain
Rights campaigners have furiously criticized Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II for the warm welcome she is offering to Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, saying the king has led a massive crackdown on the dissent in his small country.
Ali Mushaima, the son of a jailed Bahraini activist, said he would hold a vigil outside the Windsor castle, where the queen is hosting Hamad for horse show this weekend.
The activist argued that the queen is providing Hamad and his increasingly repressive regime with a public relations opportunity.
Mushaima’s father and thousands of other Bahrainis have been in jail merely due to their contribution to a peaceful movement for democracy which started in 2011.
“Yet while the king socializes with dignitaries, my ageing father languishes in a cell in Bahrain, denied access to medical treatment for a range of serious illnesses,” said Mushaima in an article for the Guardian newspaper.
“He is not alone: thousands of political prisoners fill the overcrowded cells of Bahrain’s prisons, and many others are deliberately denied medical care,” he wrote.
Britain has largely ignored calls for adopting a tougher policy in dealing with Bahrain, a small Persian Gulf country which has witnessed a harsh repression for most of the decade.
London has continued to support the regime in Manama with various arms and weapons while it also established a new naval base worth 40 million pounds in the country last year.
Hamad regularly attends the five-day Royal Windsor horse show, a main event in the annual calendar of the British queen.
The two monarchs have shown a great degree of closeness during the meetings and have even gifted each other horses.
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