Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-06-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to the government of Bahrain on the suspension of the main Shia opposition group in that country.

Mr Philip Hammond

We are concerned by the decision to suspend the activities of the Bahraini opposition group, Al Wefaq, and freeze its assets. I raised this issue with my Bahraini counterpart, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa on 14 June 2016. We encourage Bahrain to respect the rights of political groups to operate and to seek an inclusive political dialogue.