Royal Navy visits Bahrain days after Mons Hall anger

22 February 2013

A Royal Navy warship has visited Bahrain just days after it emerged a Sandhurst hall, previously dedicated to British soldiers killed in the First World War, would be renamed after the King of Bahrain. Concerns had been raised about the country's human rights record and the memory of British troops.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed on 20 February that HMS Northumberland had visited Bahrain halfway through an eight-month deployment in the Middle East.

The frigate was said to have made its visit to the home of Commodore Simon Ancona, the UK maritime component commander, who met with Brigadier General Ahmed Khalifa Salman Al Khalifa, the commander of the Royal Bahrain Naval Force.

The Bahrain Navy was described by the MoD as "an important regional partner to the Royal Navy and a major supporter of the work undertaken by the international naval forces".

But just days earlier MPs attacked a decision to rename Sandhurst's Mons Hall 'King Hamad Hall', after the King of Bahrain had donated £3m to assist with refurbishment. It had originally been named after The Battle of Mons, where thousands of British and German soldiers lost their lives during the early parts of the First Wold War.

Andy Slaughter, chairman of the Democracy In Bahrain all-party parliamentary group, warned at the time of "double standards" in renaming the hall, given concerns over human rights in Bahrain.

"To change the name of something which commemorates a very tragic episode in British military history and an example of courage and heroism of British soldiers simply because they're getting a sum of money from a rather dubious source is appalling," he was quoted as saying.

"It reflects the appalling double standards the British government and institutions have in relation to the Bahraini regime, which is guilty of all sorts of human rights abuses and fundamentally undemocratic."

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn also reportedly said he was "appalled" at the decision adding that there was something "deeply ironic in renaming a hall that was in memory of soldiers who died in a tragic battle in the First World War in honour of a king who is routinely committing human rights abuses, including the shooting of demonstrators".