UK: MP apologises after telling human rights activist to ‘go back to Bahrain’

A British MP has apologised to the director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) after telling the human rights activist and torture survivor to “go back to Bahrain” and accusing him of “taking money off my country”.

The confrontation between Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei and Conservative Party MP for Beckenham, Bob Stewart, was filmed outside a reception hosted by the Embassy of Bahrain in London.

“How much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?” Alwadaei asked Stewart, referring to a trip paid for by the Bahrain government ahead of its elections. Stewart told him to “Get stuffed” and that “Bahrain’s a great place. End of.”

Alwadaei said, “You were paid by them recently,” to which Stewart replied: “Go away, I hate you. You make a lot of fuss. Go back to Bahrain.” After another comment from Alwadaei about how much he was being paid, the MP told him, “Now you shut up you stupid man. You’re taking money off my country, go away.”

READ: Kuwait gets $100m back from Bahrain

Alwadaei has reportedly filed a complaint to the police, describing the incident as “racist abuse”. In a statement to the media, the activist said: “I don’t believe I would have been told to ‘go back’ to the country that violently tortured me if it weren’t for the colour of my skin. No-one should be subjected to racial abuse, particularly for holding an MP to account for accepting lavish gifts from one of the world’s most repressive regimes.”

Conservative MP Bob Stewart has said he made "a mistake" after he was caught on video telling a human rights activist to "go back to Bahrain".

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The activist added that, “Stewart is acting as a mouthpiece by publicly denying Bahrain’s notorious and extensively documented human rights abuses — abuses which have been condemned by the United Nations.”

Since the incident, Mr Stewart has released his own statement apologising for his remarks: “If anyone thinks I’ve been racist I honestly didn’t mean to be, and I apologise if they think that, and I wasn’t.”

Alwadaei, who won an Index on Censorship award in 2020 for his campaigning, was imprisoned and tortured for taking part in a pro-democracy uprising in the Gulf state in 2011. A year later he sought political asylum in Britain where he co-founded BIRD.

READ: UK selective approach to human rights abuse condemned