Human rights groups are sounding the alarm over Tory Foreign Secretary's links to repressive Gulf states

Human rights groups are concerned that a Tory MP who has received over £30,000 in hospitality from repressive Gulf states could be appointed as Minister for the Middle East.

Leo Docherty has been appointed Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office earlier this month as part of Liz Truss's new front bench.

The department has yet to say which portfolio she will be given, but the activists say they are "extremely concerned" that he could be put in charge of relations with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

They say such an appointment would be "unthinkable " in view of the "sponsorship MP's past through some of the world's most repressive regimes' and high praise for them in parliament. in paid trips from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, according to his register of interests.

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And in 2017 he was the subject of an official complaint to the parliamentary commissioner for standards after failing to properly declare a paid trip to Saudi Arabia.

During a parliamentary debate on Bahrain in September 2018, in which MPs raised concerns about human rights a man in the country, Mr Doherty said he was "extremely proud" to be associated with the Gulf state - where Amnesty International says torture is used with "impunity".

"When we travel to Bahrain, we see a young country that has achieved remarkable development in a very short time", he said, adding that "there is a huge momentum in the ruling family for reform and improvements.”

In an article published in October 2018, Mr. Doherty defended paid travel by the governments of other Gulf countries, saying that Saudi Arabia “has been for many years extremely strategically important to the UK across many sectors." He described the UK as "a long standing ally of our friends in Saudi Arabia and the UAE". /p>

The Foreign Office declined to comment on campaigners' concerns, but said ministers' portfolios would be allocated and announced in due course.

"This appointment rang the bell 'alarm among human rights groups,' said Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.

"Leo Docherty has repeatedly received gifts in the form of paid trips from Gulf States, including Bahrain and Arabia Saudi Arabia, then congratulated them in Parliament, despite their horrendous human rights violations.

Conservative MP Leo Docherty has been appointed Foreign Secretary

(UK Government)

"We are extremely concerned that Leo Docherty has been appointed as Foreign Secretary and fear that he will receive the dossier of the Middle East even though his past patronage of some of the most repressive regimes in the world gives rise to an apparent conflict of interest that should make such an appointment unthinkable.

And Lord Scriven, a Liberal Democrat peer and vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and human rights in the Gulf, said it would be 'frankly unacceptable' for a minister were "directly sponsored by those same states, receiving gifts in the form of lavish journeys".

Lord Scriven added: "He took selfies with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as he oversaw a military operation in Yemen, the world's worst man-made humanitarian crisis, which oversaw the execution of pro-democracy protesters. in Saudi Arabia.

"He defended Bahrain in a parliamentary debate in which the ruling family...