Embassy highlights experts' human rights contributions

London, Oct. 26 (BNA): Bahrain's embassy in the United Kingdom said that the Kingdom has been able to reshape its human rights landscape and strengthen protections and guarantees with assistance from Northern Ireland Cooperation Overseas (NI-CO), a body of specialized experts that has provided advice and training to institutions. The assistance in the past three years was part of the Bahrain-UK technical cooperation programme, the embassy said in its response to the criticism aimed at NI-CO and experts from Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom in general for their work in Bahrain. "The technical co-operation programme focused on areas of police and security reform and also on areas of the criminal justice system," the embassy said. "The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry’s (BICI) report recommended the establishment of oversight bodies, such as the Ombudsman Office – a police and prisoner ombudsman – that had no equivalent in the region. As a result, training, standards of procedure and models to adopt were unavailable in the region and there was little, if any, Arabic source material from which to draw." The challenges of establishing oversight institutions are quite significant. "These institutions have had to go through a phase of defining their legal frameworks, recruiting staff and training them, as well as establishing and refining standards of practice and procedure. The ongoing work between NI-CO and institutions in Bahrain is a critical part of the reform process in direct response to the BICI recommendations." For any human rights group, to set an arbitrary timeline for making ample progress is not helpful, the embassy said. "Additionally, disregarding the challenges of establishing of such institutions, the steep learning curves, and the complexities of changing social and institutional cultures robs these institutions of any chance of success. In fact, it is counterproductive and has to make one wonder what the ultimate goal is – to seek an end to the shared relationship with parties from the United Kingdom rather than strengthen human rights protections. "Such exchanges have helped to bring about more accountability and oversight in Bahrain, and it would be a shame to see that come to an end over the misguided intentions of people who may have a political agenda that stretches beyond reform." The embassy emphasised that "if those calling for reform in Bahrain do really want it, they should join in the process and support the efforts of collaboration, retraining and the institution of best practices that result from the co-operation between the UK and NI-CO, and the Kingdom of Bahrain." "There is an acknowledgement that more needs to be done, but, at the same time, there is demonstrable evidence from the reports of these entities that a lot of progress has been achieved," the embassy said.