News - World - UK: Several British parties have called on the government to suspend secretive funding programs in Gulf through the so-called "Gulf Strategic Fund".

They warned against the possibility of London's involvement in the violation of human rights in Gulf countries, especially in Bahrain.

The British newspaper, Financial Times, stated that these parties said that the programs supported by the Integrated Activity Fund (IAF) had been run with “absolute minimum levels of accountability, transparency, and due diligence in spite of being repeatedly implicated in human rights violations."

The fund supports institutions where human rights abuses are common, making Britain itself vulnerable to complicity in abuses. The report, released on Tuesday, indicated that the fund spent 53 million pounds between 2016/17 and 21/2020.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are Britain's important partners in the Middle East, and their navy receives US and British bases.

There are more than 1,500 political prisoners in the small kingdom. About 300 Bahrainis have been stripped of their citizenship, according to the Bahrain Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, which prepared the report.

The fund was established in 2016 and began financing programs in the Gulf a year later, under the supervision of the Government Office. It was replaced by the Gulf Strategic Fund in 2020, which is now under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The institute's report was endorsed by 10 of the 17 members of the group, including Peter Bottomley, a conservative who accused the government of misleading and deceiving about the Integrated Activity Fund, which it claimed was for health, sports and culture and was not used in Bahrain's security programs.