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A Conservative MP has been reported to the police after telling a torture victim to ‘go back to Bahrain’.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadei, the director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, claims the comments made by Bob Stewart were racist abuse.
Footage shows Mr Alwadei challenging the Beckenham MP who in turn told the human rights activist he was ‘taking money off my country’.
‘Get stuffed. Bahrain is a great place, end of,’ Mr Stewart said.
‘Go away, I hate you. You make a lot of fuss, go back to Bahrain.’
Mr Alwadei, 36, fled Bahrain after taking part in anti-government protests and said he was tortured by the police.
He confronted the MP outside Lancaster House in Westminster, accusing him of taking donations from the Bahraini government.
He asked: ‘How much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?’
Mr Stewart responded: ‘I didn’t, now you shut up you stupid man.’
Bob Stewart MP was confronted by Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei outside a ceremony hosted by the Bahraini Embassy at Lancaster House in central London (Picture: PA)
‘You’re taking money off my country, go away,’ he added, with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Mr Alwadei’s complaint to the police describes the conversation as an ‘incident of racist abuse’. He also made a complaint to the Conservative party.
He told the media: ‘I don’t believe I would have been told to “go back” to the country that violently tortured me if it weren’t for the colour of my skin.
‘No one should be subjected to racial abuse, particularly for holding an MP to account for accepting lavish gifts from one of the world’s one of the world’s most repressive regimes.
The Conservative MP is chair of the all-parliamentary group on Bahrain (Picture: UnBoxPHD/SplashNews.com)
‘Stewart is acting as a mouthpiece by publicly denying its notorious and extensively documented human rights abuses – abuses which have been condemned by the United Nations.’
The MP is the chair of the all-parliamentary group on Bahrain and has accepted paid-for trips from the gulf state.
Mr Stewart said: ‘My mistake was to actually be goaded into reaction, and I apologise for that. I also apologise if anybody think I was being racist – I was not.
‘I meant go back to Bahrain, which is a perfectly safe place, and protest there.
‘If anybody thinks I’ve been racist. I honestly, didn’t mean to be, and I apologise if they think that, and I wasn’t.’
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Mr Stewart, a former British Army officer who was stationed in Bahrain in 1969 and has represented Beckenham since 2010, praised the gulf state as a ‘wonderful place to live’, adding: ‘You can worship anything you like in Bahrain – you can worship a tree.’
Amnesty International criticised the state after Bahrainis took part in elections for the lower house of parliament that advises King Hamad, but no opposition candidates were permitted to stand.
Parliamentary records show Mr Stewart registered flights, accommodation and meals worth £5,349 during a four-day trip to Bahrain in November last year, paid for by its ministry of foreign affairs.
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A separate entry covered by the Bahraini government shows another trip to visit an air show and meet its foreign minister that cost £1,245.56.
A Conservative Party spokesman: ‘We have an established code of conduct and formal processes where complaints can be made in confidence. This process is rightly confidential.’
The Metropolitan Police confirmed it would assess Mr Alwadei’s report and determine whether any further action is required.
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Sayed Ahmed Alwadei claims the comments made by Bob Stewart were racist abuse.
