London sold anti-demonstration material to Bahrain

"Britain under fire for selling arms to Bahrain", headlines The Independent. Britain’s government has been criticised for arms sales to a number of Arab governments that have cracked down on pro-democracy protests in recent weeks. The newspaper reports the government gave the go-ahead last year for sales of crowd control equipment including “CS hand grenades, demolition charges, smoke canisters and thunderflashes". The approval came during Bahrain’s elections in October 2010, which were mired by a crackdown on Shia opposition groups. In the past two days at least four people have been killed and 231 injured in protests aimed at overthrowing the deeply unpopular administration in the tiny Gulf state. The governing Conservative party has long standing ties to Bahrain, the paper says.