Saudi Arabia, Bahrain

Well done Michael Gove for persuading Prime Minister David Cameron to ditch the £5.9 million contract to provide training for Saudi Arabia prisons http://bit.ly/1k4eTzE . It should be a general rule  that we don't offer training or advice for prisons or judicial systems in countries where these systems are seriously compromised, eg the training in human rights of judges in Bahrain. There will be a test of how effective this training has been when the appeal by Zeinab al-Khawaja appears before the Bahrain court of appeal on October 21, appealing against sentences totalling five years imprisonment for 'offences' such as tearing up a picture of the king. A system that routinely yields punishments so flagrantly violating the right to freedom of expression is incapable of reform.