Heather Bellamy spoke with Andrew Smith from Campaign Against Arms Trade about the recent sentencing of three Al Jazeera journalists

Andrew Smith

Three Al Jazeera journalists have recently been sentenced to seven years in prison and Campaign Against Arms Trade has called for an immediate end to all arms sales to the Egyptian regime. This follows the recent mass trial that recommended the death penalty for 683 people. So to find out more Heather Bellamy spoke with Andrew Smith from the Campaign Against Arms Trade.

Heather: First of all, what arms does the UK Government actually sell to Egypt?

Andrew: It sells a lot of different arms. We know that in 2013 alone the UK licensed £51m worth of arms to Egypt. This has included things like assault rifles and pistols and also military vehicles and military aircraft components as well. Since the Arab Spring, the UK's licensed £70m; that's been despite the widespread political instability. The argument we would make is that this doesn't just support the regime militarily, but it also gives a political support to it as well and a UK endorsement for what the regime is doing.

Heather: So how long have we been selling arms to Egypt?

Andrew: Well this isn't a new policy, it's been for a long time - but the UK has been far too close to the Egyptian Government. We know that Tony Blair described Mubarak as immensely courageous and a force for good. We also know that in February 2011, which was just after the Arab Spring, when David Cameron flew out to Egypt, he wasn't going to promote democracy; he flew out with senior representatives from arms companies like BAE, QinetiQ and Rolls Royce who were all going to sell weapons.

Heather: So has the UK Government made any changes, or any comment, on our position on selling arms since the regime change in Egypt, or since these recent imprisonments?

Andrew: We know that last July a number of licenses were suspended and some were revoked. We don't have a full list of which licenses these were - but the key point of that is why should it always take a high-profile human rights abuse before the UK stops selling arms to a tyrant or limits the arms it's selling? Very often when these licenses are suspended it's only for as short a time as possible, or until the worst of the embarrassment or potential for embarrassment is over. We can't have arms control by embarrassment; we have to do it by principle.

Heather: So do you not take any encouragement at all from those moves? Because, obviously, we began this interview and it was sounding like you felt like there was going to be no response.

Andrew: Well I should clarify that there hasn't been any suspensions as a result of what has happened with the Al Jazeera journalists. The point we would make is that it's completely inconsistent for the UK to take a policy of talking about human rights abroad at the same time as its facilitating human rights abuses through selling weapons not just to governments like the one in Egypt, but the one in Bahrain and the one in Saudi Arabia as well. There are a number of oppressive governments who buy weapons from the UK. And it's not just the UK because if we look at arms sales to Egypt from 2012, Egypt bought over £300m worth of arms from EU states: France, Germany, Italy and Spain also sold a lot of weapons to Egypt that year.

Heather: So what do you stand for at Campaign Against Arms Trade? Is it a general stopping of selling arms to anybody or just when the regimes are committing certain human rights offences?

Andrew: We'd like to see the end of the global arms trade, but obviously that's a marathon rather than a sprint. I think in the short term the most important thing is that the UK and other countries stop selling weapons to human rights abusers and stop facilitating human rights abuses. We've taken a look at the stats from 2013, looking through Government reports, and the UK Government licensed £2 billion worth of arms to oppressive regimes in 2013 alone. There's absolutely no way that this can be reconciled with the position of talking about human rights promotions abroad. The UK should be using its influence to promote democracy and freedom. It shouldn't be using its influence to peddle arms to dictators.

Heather: So going back to these journalists, what are your thoughts on why the Egyptian Government has given such a strong response to them?

Andrew: I think the Egyptian Government is making a statement that it doesn't want media scrutiny and I think the idea is to try and silence journalism and to try to silence the people who are trying to hold the Government accountable.

Heather: What are your concerns on the effect of journalism within Egypt and even in the wider Middle East in relation to that?

Andrew: If journalists are afraid to speak out, then they won't be as likely to speak out and I think that free speech and a free press is a staple part of democracy. Ultimately the point is that the Arab Spring should have seen a re-evaluation of how the UK and other countries do business with Egypt. What is clear is that arms companies treated it as a business opportunity and governments like the UK supported them in doing so. One of the side effects of that has been the clamping down on free speech in Egypt. Another side effect of that has been the political turmoil the country's under at the moment. And it's not just in Egypt: it's been the case in Bahrain; it's been the case in other countries which have had uprisings as well.

Heather: How much control does our Government have in relation to sales of arms, in terms of controlling companies that sell them?

Andrew: Every single sale that a company based in the UK is making to a government, like the government in Egypt, has to be supported by the UK Government. They all need military licenses that need to be signed off by the UK Government. Therefore, while the UK is not directly selling the weapons, it is facilitating every single sale; it is endorsing every single sale. The Government could easily stop weapons sales from UK companies to countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia if it wanted to, but it doesn't.

Heather: What's your opinion on the wider issue of the war on terror? Does the UK have any moral high ground when we seem on the one hand to be aiding and abetting what happens in these nations with the sales of arms and on the other making a military response?

Andrew: I think that the military response that we've been making has been wrong. It's now been 11 years since the UK supported America in going into Iraq and I think everyone would agree the situation there is far from stable. I think that the military response has been wrong. I think that what the arms trade shows us is that it's hypocritical as well. A perfect example of that is the relationship between the UK and Gaddafi. In 2004 there was a huge kind of celebration made of the fact that Gaddafi was coming in from the cold and was working with the EU nations, who then licensed large quantities of weapons to him which, surprisingly enough, Gaddafi, being a tyrannical dictator, then turned those weapons on his own people. It can't be the case that the UK talks about promoting democracy in countries like Libya at the same time as it's selling weapons to the dictators in countries like Libya.