Prince Charles entertains Bahraini despot al-Khalifa during a visit to London.
British monarch prince Charles has entered a deal with the brutal regime of Bahrain, thus Å“giving legitimacy to one of the worldâ„¢s most repressive regimes”.
Prince Charles ratified the £700,000 deal on behalf of his architecture group who will advise the Bahraini regime on housing and planning.
The deal was signed by Hank Dittmar, CEO of the Princeâ„¢s Foundation for Building Community, and Bahrainâ„¢s housing minister Basim Alhamer earlier this month, according to Bahrain News Agency. It followed a meeting between Alhamer and Prince Charles at Clarence House on April 26.
The Princeâ„¢s Foundation will be overseeing the construction of a new 4,000-unit housing project in the south of Bahrain.
The project will take inspiration from Poundbury, the model village in Dorset created by Prince Charles 20 years ago. A team from the Foundation will visit Bahrain later this month to begin work.
Representatives of Bahrain have visited Poundbury on numerous occasions – in April 2007 Charles gave the Crown Prince of Bahrain a personal tour.
Å“The deal is already being used for PR purposes by the Bahraini royal family, helping to deflect attention from the human suffering and repression theyâ„¢re inflicting on their own people,” said Republicâ„¢s chief executive Graham Smith. ”It seems that as far as Charles is concerned itâ„¢s fine to support despots and tyrants as long as they call themselves Ëœprinceâ„¢ or Ëœkingâ„¢.”
Å“Serious questions need to be asked about the nature of Prince Charlesâ„¢s engagements, which his press office love to crow about when claiming he works hard for Britain. This meeting with the Bahrainis was all about pushing his own hobby horse and securing a deal for his friends at the Princeâ„¢s Foundation.”
Bahrain has one of the worst human rights records in the Middle East. Itâ„¢s regime, led by members of the Bahraini royal family, routinely tortures and mistreats political prisoners, blocks opposition websites and harasses human rights activists.
Pro-democracy protests in 2011 were brutally suppressed by Bahraini security forces using shotguns, rubber bullets and teargas. Demonstrations against last monthâ„¢s F1 Grand Prix were also violently suppressed.
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This article originally appeared on : Press TV