Declassified UK revealed on its website that British internal and external intelligence services provide training to senior officials in more than 10 African and Middle Eastern countries, describing them as the most repressive in the world.
The organization - which specializes in investigative journalism and the role of London in the world - accuses the British government of being ready to support any system that serves its political and economic interests.
"Britain tries to pretend that it is concerned about human rights and democracy, but when you look at the evidence and clarify all the rumors, you discover that human rights are marginal, and all the evidence indicates that we are ready to support any regime that does what we want and serves our interest," says Matt Cannard of the Declassified UK organization. Economic. "
According to the organization, the British intelligence services provided training between 2018 and 2019 to countries including Saudi Arabia, which some of its agents participated in the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, after months of receiving the training. Likewise, the UAE, which arrested British academic Matthew Hedges on the pretext of being a spy. And Egypt, whose intelligence killed the Italian scholar Giulio Regeni.
The British government says that the best way to influence these systems, which criticize human rights organizations that it has recorded in the field of human rights, is to maintain a good relationship with them, but some security and intelligence experts see this government narrative as flimsy.
"There is no evidence that these countries have improved their human rights record. Rather, it is getting darker. For example, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are waging a devastating war in Yemen and Britain supplying them with weapons and intelligence training," said Charles Shoppridge, "The statements of British officials are selective, hypocritical." Why do they not pursue the same policy, for example, with Syria, Russia or China?