Alwaght- Human rights groups are demanding the Saudi regime forces. But the educational body is refusing to release this information, while claiming that the training meets top international human rights standards.
According to state-run BBC, the college trained 270 Saudi officers between December 2012 and October 2015. The institution is responsible for setting standards of ethics and education for Britain’s police service.
The college of Policing has refused to tell precisely how much Saudi Arabia paid it for the training.
Maya Foa of human rights group Reprieve told BBC "The Home Office has serious questions to answer over the relationship between British police and Saudi forces, who are responsible for serious human rights abuses such as torture".
"Given that the Saudis are executing record numbers of people – including political protesters who were tortured and convicted in secret courts, some when they were just teenagers – the government’s refusal to reveal details of its cooperation with the Saudis is totally unacceptable, "she argued.
"The Home Secretary must explain urgently why she is risking UK complicity with these terrible abuses.”
The British government has previously been condemned for supporting the Saudi-led military aggression on Yemen through sale of weapons used against civilians in the impoverished country.
Former Tory cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell told the Telegraph: “Britain’s humanitarian and foreign policy are pursuing different ends.”
“The Yemenis are being pulverized by the Saudis while we try to get aid in through ports which are being blockaded and while British ordnance is being d r o pped there.”
In September Oxfam aid agency called the situation in Yemen “a humanitarian disaster,” and accused the Britain of exacerbating the crisis by continuing to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. Since Yemen’s war began, Britain has granted the Saudis at least 37 export licenses for military goods.
Around 8,000 have been killed during the Saudi-led airstrikes which began late March Yemen with over 16,000 injured. Most of the casualties are civilians especially women, children and the elderly.
The illegal war has inflicted damages on hundreds of important installations in the civilian infrastructure including hospitals, schools, mosques, residential quarters, water reservoirs etc.
A 2015 Human Rights Watch report summarized the human rights situation in the kingdom stating: “Saudi Arabia continued in 2014 to try, convict, and imprison political dissidents and human rights activists solely on account of their peaceful activities. Systematic discrimination against women and religious minorities continued. Authorities failed to enact systematic measures to protect the rights of 9 million foreign workers. As in past years, authorities subjected hundreds of people to unfair trials and arbitrary detention. New anti-terrorism regulations that took effect in 2014 can be used to criminalize almost any form of peaceful criticism of the authorities as terrorism.”