Bahrain rejects criticism of UN award for PM
Publish Date: Tuesday,3 July, 2007, at 01:44 AM Doha Time
Ban Ki-moon gives Sheikh Khalifah bin Salman al-Khalifah the 2006 Special Citation and Habitat Scroll of Honour in Geneva yesterday
MANAMA: A Bahraini minister yesterday dismissed objections raised by rights groups to a UN decision to award Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifah bin Salman al-Khalifah an honour for improving living standards in the kingdom.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Bahraini rights groups criticised the decision to award Sheikh Khalifah the Habitat Scroll of Honour.
Bahrain rejects criticism of UN award for PM
Publish Date: Tuesday,3 July, 2007, at 01:44 AM Doha Time
Ban Ki-moon gives Sheikh Khalifah bin Salman al-Khalifah the 2006 Special Citation and Habitat Scroll of Honour in Geneva yesterday
MANAMA: A Bahraini minister yesterday dismissed objections raised by rights groups to a UN decision to award Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifah bin Salman al-Khalifah an honour for improving living standards in the kingdom.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Bahraini rights groups criticised the decision to award Sheikh Khalifah the Habitat Scroll of Honour.
“Sheikh Khalifah … presided over several decades of severe political repression in the country, including the systematic torture, arbitrary arrest and forced exile of political opponents,” HRW said.
Minister of Social Development Fatma al-Beloushi brushed aside the allegations. “When charges like this are made, some sort of proof should be offered,” she said in Geneva.
“We have been working hard to make Bahrain an open society where everyone has free expression.”
The information ministry said: “The prize is international recognition of achievements in supporting Bahrain’s growth.”
The Habitat Scroll of Honour is the UN’s most prestigious award for those deemed instrumental in lifting living standards in urban centres around the world, a UN website said.
Habitat programme chief Anna Tibaijuka said her mandate mainly dealt with promoting the provision of adequate shelter and that the award was for Bahrainis through the prime minister.
“If it can be shown that the prime minister was not in charge of the programme we are celebrating … then this is a different story,” she said, but stressed the UN’s research had been rigorous in determining Khalifah’s role.
In a ceremony during a meeting of the UN’s Economic and Social Council, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commended Bahrain and Sheikh Khalifah for “remarkable strides in reducing poverty.”
“Over the past quarter of a century, Bahrain has transformed itself from a collection of rural villages into a thriving diversified economy while preserving the cultural heritage of the kingdom,” Ban said.
HRW cited claims by the campaign group Bahrain Centre for Housing Rights that the government’s budget had long failed to address a serious housing crisis in the country.
According to UN-Habitat, which made the award, Bahrain’s investment between 1980 and 2000 helped create more than 30,000 subsidised homes and 9,000 building loans.
The UN-Habitat office promotes socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities and adequate shelter.
Minister al-Beloushi said most of the kingdom’s 2007 to 2008 budget was devoted to housing. – Agencies
