Pressure is mounting on the US and UK to come clean with the arms sales policies to Saudi Arabia as it commits more war crimes in Yemen. A California Congressman has been trying to get officials of the Obama administration to reconsider U.S. backing for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The brutal bombing of civilian areas with U.S.-supplied planes and weapons has led Ted Lieu, a Democrat representing Los Angeles County to act when most of his colleagues have stayed silent. “I taught the law of war when I was on active duty,” he told The Intercept. “You can’t kill children, newlyweds, doctors and patients — those are exempt targets under the law of war, and the coalition has been repeatedly striking civilians,” he said. “So it is very disturbing to me. It is even worse that the U.S. is aiding this coalition.” “Many in Congress have been hesitant to criticize the Saudis’ operational conduct in Yemen,” Lieu said.

On Tuesday 30th August U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called for an international investigation into all grave violations in Yemen, saying a national commission had focused mainly on Houthi violations and not pursued any of the perpetrators. On Thursday 25th August, The United Nations human rights office called for more light to be shed on the Saudi-led coalition air strikes in Yemen and for violations including attacks on protected sites like hospitals to be punished. Air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition are responsible for "the single largest part", some 60 percent, of the 3,799 civilians killed since March 2015 and it has committed other violations that may contravene international law, it said in a report. Though the coalition had shared findings from its own internal investigations, "more transparency" was needed, Mohammad Ali Alnsour, chief of the Middle East and North Africa section of the U.N. human rights office, told a briefing in Geneva. "There was targeting of civilian objects ... like markets, like wedding ceremonies, hospitals, facilities that really under international humanitarian law is protected and have a special kind of legal protection," Alnsour said. Steps have been taken to curtail the Saudi efforts to spread its poisonous ideologies of extremism and terrorism in the West. King Fahd Academy in Bonn has been closed and pressures are escalating to close down other Saudi schools and institutions in other countries. Muslim youth are radicalised by the Wahhabi-Salafi destructive ideologies of these schools.

The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BHRC) has documented at least 16 arbitrary arrests in the week 23rd-28th August, including two children. There were at least 46 protests in 29 towns and villages.  More people were sentenced to jail terms for peaceful activities. Yesterday Alkhalifa kangaroo court imposed one year jail sentence on Sayed Ali Ahmad Jassim for congregating outside Sheikh Qassim’s house. This is the second person to be given this long sentence simply for showing solidarity with the highest native religious scholar in the country. Scores of religious scholars, orators and activists are behind bars awaiting similar or harsher sentences. Yesterday Alkhalifa Court handed down five year jail term to five native Bahrainis and three year jail term to six others over burning tires in Al-Markh. To cover up their crimes Alkhalifa have banned all human rights activists from leaving the country to Geneva. Among them are Ebtesam Al Sayegh, Nidal Al Salman, Enas Aounjj, Isa Al Ghayeb, Ahmad Al Saffar, Hussain Radhi and Jalila AlSalman.

British police have been criticised for refusing to release details of a deal to train security officials from Bahrain which is accused of a litany of human rights abuses. Human rights campaigners have said the College of Policing (CoP), which sets standards for UK officers and offers worldwide training courses, should be compelled to explain their work in countries with poor records on civil liberties. The concerns come less than two months after MPs criticised the “totally unacceptable” opacity around the college’s provision of training to Saudi Arabia. Last month, members of the home affairs select committee said greater transparency was needed, and criticised the then foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, for avoiding the public scrutiny of deals with unsavoury regimes.

A serious attack on most senior historic Islamic figures has polarised the situation between the general Muslim public and Alkhalifa ruling tribe. Unprecedented insults and swearing were published by a senior Alkhalifa figure on his Instagram account causing an outpour of anger among people. A senior official in the Alkhalifa torture apparatus insulted Prophet Mohammad’s household in a way that no one before him did. The wording of the attack on Islam’s holiest figures is unprecedented. These comments are worse than any anti-Shia attacks by ISIS, the Wahhabis or even Western writers. They describe descendants of the Prophet as whores and pimps and curse them in dirty language. They are not only sectarian but anti-Islam and anti-morality. The author rushed to close his Instagram account. This is at a time when anyone who tweets against the Saudi aggression on Yemen is given five years jail sentence.