UN stirs controversy with housing award to Bahrain PM Mon Jul 2, 3:50 PM ET
Human rights campaigners protested a decision by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to present Bahrain’s Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa with an award for his urban development policies.
In a ceremony during a meeting of the UN’s Economic and Social Council, Ban commended Bahrain and the Sheikh 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.
UN stirs controversy with housing award to Bahrain PM Mon Jul 2, 3:50 PM ET
Human rights campaigners protested a decision by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to present Bahrain’s Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa with an award for his urban development policies.
In a ceremony during a meeting of the UN’s Economic and Social Council, Ban commended Bahrain and the Sheikh 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.
But the US-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch criticised the award in a statement.
It accused Bahrain’s prime minister of presiding over “several decades of severe political repression in the country, including systematic torture, arbitrary arrest and the forced exile of political opponents.”
The Sheikh has held office since independence in 1971.
“A person with a human rights record as poor as that of Sheikh Khalifa should not be getting a UN award of any kind,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at HRW.
The group also 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.
“Even from the narrow perspective of rights to adequate housing, Sheikh Khalifa appears to be a dubious choice,” Crawshaw added.
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.
Bahrain’s Social Development Minister Fatima al-Balushi said most of the kingdom’s 2007 to 2008 budget was devoted to housing.
Bahrain has a population of some 750,000. Some 92 percent of the population lived in urban areas in 2000, according to the United Nations.
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.