Stop UK gov supporting Human Rights abuses. Open letter to Julian Sturdy MP

Dear Mr Sturdy,

You may have already seen the article in the Independent "UK trains soldiers for majority of regimes on its own Human Rights abuse watchlist"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/britain-trains-soldiers-for-most-regimes-on-its-own-human-rights-abuse-watchlist-a7041086.html

I hope that you are as shocked and appalled as I am. We are providing support and training to some of the worst abusers of Human Rights in the world; and we know that they will use both the training and the materiale to pursue and torture people either in their own country or countries that they are at war with (or both). This is both immoral, and illegal under international law. It is also, but actually less importantly, likely to increase the chance of the UK being a terrorist target as people are driven by their governments to extreme remedies against their government and it's supporters.

I urge you to write to relevant ministries including the department of defence (to stop all support to countries abusing Human Rights), to the department for overseas development to ensure that it funds no work in support of military activity, and nothing to police forces that systematically abuse Human Rights, to HMRC to ensure that they are not using expert licences anywhere that weapons may be used for internal repression or against other countries and to the home office asking them to investigate and pursue any illegal activity.

It may help you to note that according to the Ministry of Defence, British soldiers have trained the armed forces of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burma, Burundi, China, Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Zimbabwe – despite the human rights records of those countries.

I hope that together we can see some action to stop the government supporting Human Rights abuses.

Best wishes

Tom.

Tom Franklin
4 Frazer Court
York
YO30 5FH

email:    tom@franklin-consulting.co.uk