LONDON (Middle East Eye) – Women’s rights were removed from a description of what a UK government fund supports in Saudi Arabia, a week after the kingdom sentenced a Leeds University PhD candidate and mother to 34 years in prison over her tweets.
Campaigners said the lack of clarity over what the Persian Gulf Strategy Fund (GSF) does support in Saudi Arabia, at a time when the human rights situation there is deteriorating, raises questions about whether the UK is bolstering institutions that carry out abuses.
The GSF, which has so far given £70mn to six Persian Gulf states, has been criticized by MPs and rights groups for leaving the public largely in the dark about how it is run and taxpayer money is spent.
The government first published a brief summary of what the GSF supports last year after MPs held a 90-minute debate demanding answers about the fund in October 2020.
In the summary published in June 2021, it says the GSF “bolsters the strategic partnership and delivers mutual prosperity and security by supporting Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 reforms across priority sectors in line with UK values, including women’s rights”.
But in the Saudi Arabia section of a new summary published on 26 August, a week after Salma al-Shehab’s 34-year sentence over her social media activism made headlines, women’s rights are no longer referenced at all.
Days later, it emerged that a second Saudi Arabian woman, Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani, was given a 45-year sentence also over her tweets.
It is not clear which Saudi institutions the fund has supported or how much has been allocated to each of them.
Without clarity over exactly what is funded, rights groups said they fear the UK is supporting repressive bodies.
Lina al-Hathloul, head of monitoring and communications for the human rights group Alqst, said the newly published summary “still doesn’t provide clear and transparent answers” and questioned how the GSF is supporting human rights in Saudi Arabia.