Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the Prime Minister of Bahrain, died on 11 November after half a century in power. He took office one year before Bahrain gained independence from the British, in 1971, and was one of the longest serving Prime Ministers in the world. Uncle of the current King, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, he…
Monday 19 November, 7pm Room SWLT, Paul Webley Wing (Senate House) at SOAS University While the horrific death of Jamal Kashoggi has brought the UK-Saudi relationship under increased scrutiny, the death and destruction of the lives of millions in Yemen, and ongoing human rights abuses for those living and working in Saudi Arabia and those…
From the military regime of Abdelfattah al-Sisi in Egypt, to the reactionary monarchies of the Gulf, British backing enables repression across the Middle East. British arms, financial assistance and diplomatic support, help dictators and despots get away with killing protesters and silencing dissent. That’s why our campaigns in solidarity with activists in the region who…
By Alice Finden Farida Ghulam, wife of Bahraini political prisoner of conscience Ebrahim Sharif, Amnesty International’s trade union campaigns manager Shane Enright and author Marc Owen Jones joined a panel discussion to launch Bahrain’s Uprising on 7 October. The book, which is edited by Ala’a Shehabi and Marc makes a vital contribution in its field…
Joint Press Release from Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, MENASolidarity and UCU EMBARGOED UNTIL 9:00am, 24 September 2015 Unions launch campaign over UK government failure to act on Bahrain abuses. Call for independent audit of FCO assistance to Bahrain. UK and global trade unions today launched a campaign highlighting “widespread and systematic” human rights…
By David Binns, UCU London Retired Members branch The lecturers’ union UCU debates this weekend a motion calling for a trade-union led inquiry into British backing for repression in Bahrain. David Binns, provides some background on the initiative in this guest post. UCU London Retired Members branch first took up the issue of Bahrain’s teachers,…
By David Binns, UCU Retired members branch Leading Bahraini human rights and pro-democracy activist Nabeel Rajab is once again on the receiving end of the repression which is one of the enduring specialisms of the gulf dictatorship. The latest of Nabeel’s arrests took place at the beginning of October, shortly after his return from an…
Leading Bahrain human rights activist Maryam al-Khawaja remains in detention in Bahrain after being arrested on 30 August after she arrived to visit her father, a political prisoner who began a hunger strike on 25 August. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is serving a life sentence after a trial widely condemned as unfair, and has suffered severe torture…
by David Binns (UCU London Retired Members) MENA Solidarity’s Bahrain Briefing, posted on 21 May of this year, drew attention to the activities of a pro-regime trade union network named the Bahrain Labour Union Free Federation (BLUFF). BLUFF emerged in 2012, in the aftermath of the BahrainiSaudi joint state assault on democracy campaigners and independent…
MENA Solidarity, advocacy organisation Bahrain Watch and Bahraini human rights activists at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy have worked together to produce a background briefing for trade unionists on the situation in Bahrain. We’ll be distributing the briefing the annual congress of lecturers’ union UCU next week, or you can download copies here.…
MENA Solidarity Network 