SIPRI, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, one of the reliable research institutes that researches into the arm control published a scary report on the increase spending on arms by countries with most human rights violations. According to the report China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are among the 23 countries around the world that have more than doubled their military expenditure since 2004. While developing countries are springing more on weapons, western countries such as US is spending less on arm forces and weapons.
Saudi Arabia’s spending increased by 14 per cent and reached $67 billion,

Bahrain’s spending increased 26 per cent,

Iraq’s spending is up to 27 per cent,

The report highlights that eight states bordering the Gulf—Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are countries that invest most in arm forces and weapons.

Such report raises the important question of why such countries are inverting so much on weapons. And where do they buy these weapons from?

History reveals that all these countries have been involved in human rights violations, arm conflicts and unrest. Number of these countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are well known for arming different terrorist groups. Some others, such as Bahrain, are well known for oppressing peaceful pro-democracy native protestors.

It is interesting how money and economic priorities result in killings of many activists and pro-freedom civilians. The fact that all mentioned countries buy the weapons to mainly confront their own citizen is crystal clear to all yet no company or government stopped selling weapons to those countries. Except Korea that stated they stopped selling to Bahrain, no other country claimed such rightful decision.

If and only IF, international committees and nations would stop selling arms to countries that are famous for their human rights violations, there would be a hope for the peace in the future of the Middle East….

Too bad….

Every nation needs money and guest who has it?

Oil reached companies of Middle East…..

So it’s OK if they are killing people with it, as long as they pay CASH for the weapons….

by Hawraa Zakery, Human Rights Reseracher                      on    April, 15,2014

Need to develop universal human rights respect and empathy can be a promising solution to the growing oppression around the world.

Historically many oppressor governments and regimes used foreigners as soldiers to implement so called security rules, to torture in prisons, to investigate antigovernment movements and more. Moreover, they use foreigners as labor forces, as it is usual in most Gulf countries, for examples:

• Bahraini inmates have always complained that their guards do not speak and understand Arabic and therefore could not response to their needs,
• In the unrest of Iran during 2009/10 election , protestors stated the government used Lebanese soldiers to suppress them,
• Pakistani forces are used in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to fight with pro-democracy protestors,
• In the conflict of Syria people from all nationalities are fighting pro and against government.

And the list goes on and on.

Relying on forces from outside is a politically important strategy by countries with most human rights violations. This strategy factors out the important element of mercy and empathy among people who share same ethnicity or nationality. Soldiers who do not understand the language of the protestors do not understand the rationale behind the protest, cannot understand the prisoner when he/she is starting to be innocent, cannot respond to the medical need of the inmate after torture and so on. Besides using foreigners as forces, these governments use foreigners as labor force in order to avoid labor unrest that could impact the economy of the country.

Countries with dependency on foreign labor and political forces such as Bahrain lessen their natives’ role in political and structure of their country which is a clear violation to the basic rights of the people.

Now that governments “use/abuse” people against their fellow human beings, it is up to us, as citizens of one world, to stand up and develop universal empathy toward each other especially when we do not share same background, ethnicity and faith.

The belief that governments and authorities are the most powerful forces to change the world is a myth, at least to me as a human rights activist. Most of the times, in order to spread peace and freedom we do not need to follow governments because they have their own political agendas, but we need to follow our hearts. After all we are all citizen on one world and we all have empathy towards each other.

When we empathize we become the most powerful force that can spread peace and freedom.

 Hawraa Zakery, Human Rights Researcher           on April 8/2014