The Metropolitan Police is investigating an allegation of racial abuse after Tory MP Bob Stewart told an activist to “go back to Bahrain” during an angry confrontation.
Scotland Yard said officers have opened a case after the complaint from Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, who also reported the remarks made by the MP to the Conservatives.
Mr Stewart has apologised but denied his comments were racist – saying his intention was to suggest the activist should be campaigning in Bahrain.
Video footage shows Mr Stewart telling the campaigner, who says he is living in exile after being tortured in the Gulf state, that he is “taking money off my country” as he was challenged over his ties to Bahrain.
Mr Stewart told him: “Get stuffed. Bahrain is a great place, end of, go away, I hate you. You make a lot of fuss – go back to Bahrain.”
Mr Alwadaei, director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, challenged the MP over donations from the Bahraini government, asking “how much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime”.
Mr Stewart responded: “I didn’t, now you shut up you stupid man … You’re taking money off my country, go away.”
Mr Alwadaei’s complaint to the police describes it as an “incident of racist abuse” that took place outside the Foreign Office’s Lancaster House after an event hosted by the Bahraini embassy on Wednesday.
In a statement to the media, the activist added: “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 most repressive regimes.”
Giving Mr Alwadaei an award for his campaigning in 2020, the Index on Censorship described him as having undertaken “vital” work since fleeing Bahrain nine years earlier for taking part in anti-government protests.
Mr Alwadaei, 36, says he was injured by the Bahraini police and subsequently imprisoned and tortured, and sentenced by a military court over his participation.
Mr Stewart, 73, is the chair of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Bahrain and has accepted paid-for trips from the gulf state.
He told the PA news agency: “My mistake was to actually be goaded into reaction, and I apologise for that. I also apologise if anybody thinks I was being racist – I was not. I meant go back to Bahrain, which is a perfectly safe place, and protest there.
The MP added: “If anyone thinks I’ve been racist I honestly didn’t mean to be, and I apologise if they think that, and I wasn’t.”
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.”
Last month, Bahrainis took part in elections for the lower house of parliament that advises King Hamad, but no opposition candidates were permitted to stand and Amnesty International warned the polls would take part in an “environment of political repression”.
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.
Mr Alwadaei wrote in a complaint to Tory party chairman Nadhim Zahawi saying the MP’s comments violated the party’s code of conduct on “minimum standards of behaviour".
He also wrote a complaint to Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone, alleging Mr Stewart’s remarks breached the MPs’ code of conduct.
A Conservative spokesman: “We have an established code of conduct and formal processes where complaints can be made in confidence. This process is rightly confidential.”
