Bahrain Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa visit to the UK

That this House strongly condemns the visit by Bahraini Minister of Interior Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa to the UK in April 2023; regrets that he was conducting meetings with high-level officials including the Home Secretary and a minister at the Foreign Office as such meetings seriously undermine the UK’s credibility and its claims to hold human rights abusers to account and facilitates the whitewashing of crimes of torture and unlawful imprisonment; further regrets the timing of his visit which coincided with a policy of systematic denial of medical treatment against political prisoners including Abdulwahab Hussain, Sheikh Abduljalil Al-Muqdad, Hassan Mushaima and Abduljalil Al-Singace; notes that Al-Singace has been on solid food strike since July 2021 demanding the return of his confiscated manuscripts; expresses concern that Minister Al Khalifa has overseen the systematic persecution of human rights defenders, journalists and opposition activists in Bahrain and the terrorising of civil society since at least 2011; denounces that peaceful critics of the Bahraini Government are subjected to arbitrary imprisonment, torture and sexual assault; notes that despite ultimate responsibility for serious crimes perpetrated during the 2011 uprising, including the murder of several dissidents, Minister Al Khalifa remains in his role; and calls on the Government to apply Magnitsky Act sanctions to Minister Rashid Al Khalifa for his protracted role in overseeing a culture of abuse and a climate of impunity in Bahrain.