In Westminster, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Democracy in Bahrain are
in no doubt. Their early-day motion against this grand prix calls for a
boycott “on moral grounds”, declaring that “if it went ahead, the race would
allow the Bahrain government to present a false image to the world”. Shadow
justice minister Andy Slaughter MP – a man infelicitously named for comment
on human rights matters – argues: “Most democratic-minded people would be
appalled if you allowed the Bahrain leg of the F1 championship to go ahead
amid the most appalling human rights violations.”
Such violations continue to be alleged. Around 100 arrests have been made in
Bahrain this month ahead of the grand prix, with claims on Tuesday that
security forces were involved in clashes with pupils at Manama’s Jabreya
Secondary School. Efforts by the authorities to project an impression of
‘move along, no problems here’ have also been heightened, with police patrol
cars lining every stretch of motorway. On the first night here, it took my
driver four attempts to evade the checkpoints on the return journey to
Juffair, and only then because he recognised a Bahraini police officer whom
he knew would subject him to less of an inquisition than the man’s Saudi
colleagues.
This driver disclosed that he earned more than enough money not to be
transporting journalists behind the police cordon for reasons of financial
gain. Rather, having lost a close friend in the failed 2011 insurrection, he
said: “For the sake of your children, you must not let this repression
happen to anybody else, for any reason.”
It would be a salutary lesson for Formula One to heed.