The UK is going to send billions in arms exports to countries on the human rights blacklist
by KATIE ENGELHART
A new government report reveals that Britain has approved more than £5 billion ($7.5 billion) worth of arms export licenses for countries on its own human rights blacklist.
A total of 3,298 outstanding arms export licenses, valued at £5.2 billion, have been granted to 28 nations listed as "Countries of Human Rights Concern" by the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
Britain has approved export licenses to Libya for anti-riot shields, assault rifles shotguns, hand grenades, body armor, military helmets, submachine guns, military support vehicles and tear gas ammunition. It has also approved export to Saudi Arabia of sniper rifles and intelligence equipment — and export to Syria of body armor, military helmets and cryptographic software.
Other "countries of concern" that are set to benefit from UK arms exports are Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Russia, and Sri Lanka.
The annual report by the Committees on Arms Export Controls (CAEC), a parliamentary watchdog on arms sales, chastises the British government for an apparent disconnect between its condemnation of human rights abuses worldwide — and its policy of selling tons of weapons to authoritarian regimes.
"The Government would do well to acknowledge that there is an inherent conflict between strongly promoting arms exports to authoritarian regimes whilst strongly criticizing their lack of human rights at the same time," the report reads.
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