May’s visit to Bahrain shows disrespect for human rights: Analyst

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has visited  Bahrain to expand ties with Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region, ignoring international calls to scrap the trip due to widespread violations of human rights by some of those governments. Press TV has spoken to Catherine Shakdam, director of Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, as well as Michael Lane, founder of American Institute for Foreign Policy, to discuss the British premier’s controversial trip.

Shakdam says if Theresa May truly believed in human rights, she would not have traveled to Bahrain, adding that the British PM is acting like a “contractor” rather than a politician or a head of state.

She also dismissed as “despicable” the idea that a country like Britain which pretends to be a democratic state, continues to support the most “violent” and “blood-thirsty” monarchies in the world.

“Bahrain has become the epitome, the very definition of abuses, of repression. When we look at what is happening to Sheikh Isa Qassim for example, the fact that Bahrain has decided to use national sovereignty and nationalities to use as [an] asymmetrical weapon of war against their own people, and the UK is sitting by it, the UK is comforting them in this belief that they can continue to abuse their own people,” Shakdam stated.

However, she said, if Britain wants to choose to stand by Bahrain, then it should not pretend to care about principles such as human rights, democracy and civil liberty because it is “ridiculous.”

The analyst concluded by saying that the problem today is that Western powers claim to speak for democracy and freedom but everything they do actually “contravenes” and “contradicts” with what they say.

Meanwhile, the other panelist on Press TV’s program, Michael Lane, said Prime Minister May’s visit to Bahrain was not surprising, adding that the fallout of the Brexit vote has made the issue of human rights so much of a “secondary concern.”

He also opined that the UK needs the economic partnership with the [P]GCC states, adding that the British premier is going about it in the right way to seal it.

Lane went on to say by leaving the European Union, there is a huge hole in UK’s future and May is trying to take a “giant step to position the country to move forward in the coming century.

“The United Kingdom is facing an entirely new world since last summer when in referendum the voter of the UK decided to leave the European Union in the Brexit vote and they are dislocating themselves economically from one of the world’s hugest markets and how is the UK going to replace that, this is the immediate challenge that Prime Minister May is facing and one of the easier, faster, more lucrative partnerships that she can double down on of course is what she is doing now in the [P]GCC meeting,” he said. 

According to the analyst, boosting security cooperation and economic trade with the Persian Gulf states are the only options that Prime Minister May has on the table.

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