News / Interviews

UK taking side of oppressive regimes in Mideast: Pundit

Saturday, 26 March 2016 2:36 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 26 March 2016 2:35 PM ]

Bahraini protesters run for cover during clashes with riot police in the village of Sitra, south of the capital, Manama, on January 8, 2016. (AFP photo)

Press TV has interviewed Anthony Hall, professor of globalization at Lethbridge University, about a report saying that British forces are providing training to Bahrain’s armed forces on using sniper rifles, amid Manama’s heavy-handed crackdown on peaceful anti-regime protests.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: More proof of a Western support for oppressive governments in the Middle East, your view sir.

Hall: Here is Britain arming Bahrain. Of course Bahrain is a kind of puppet regime of Saudi Arabia which in itself is a puppet regime, a kind of extension of the Saudi, Israeli, Zionist sort of pact, so here is Britain establishing a naval base and making friends and renewing old acquaintances and friendships with the ruling family.

They had a military base, a naval base there from 1935 to 1971 and now this new naval base, cross-training is going in and it is making it very clear that the people’s popular movement against a dictatorship, a Sunni dominated family in a Shia majority country, that Britain is taking the side of the oppressive regime, is backing the Saudis, the Saudis back the Bahrainis and this is nothing like the rhetoric of freedom and democracy that the West justifies all this huge build-up of armaments largely through its puppet regimes and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Qatar, Turkey.

Press TV: And how does it look? What kind of message does it send out to the rest of the world when you purport being a champion of human rights, at the same time you are training snipers to open fire on peaceful protesters?

Hall: And you are portraying forces that have turned on their own people, their military forces to suppress popular sentiment and the expression of self-determination of the Bahraini people.

This identification with the most oppressive regimes in the world especially in the Middle East, this is really demonstrating the poverty of ethics, morality and common decency in the confused and ailing West.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk