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Commenting on Healy’s remarks, Belgrave wrote to The Times citing a Bahraini

friend, whom he alleged had bellowed in shock at the statement, saying ‘Do these

people think that Bahrain is a savage country, like the Yemen?’ 915

On the issue between the choice of living freely in exile or returning to

Bahrain as a prisoner Al-Bakir wrote in his memoir of 21 December that ‘it is better

for me to be imprisoned, even with shackles, in my country, to share my fellow

friends their suffering in jail’. 916 However the Governor of St Helena on 3 January

1961 contradicted Al-Bakir’s statement reporting ‘that Abdul Rahman al Bakr says

he would prefer to remain in St Helena rather than be returned to Bahrain if he

cannot be released’. 917

The Lord Privy Seal Sir Edward Heath visited Bahrain on 15 January for two

and a half days. With permission from the Ruler, he visited the two frontline

members who remained imprisoned on the island of Jidda in order to inspect the

conditions of imprisonment on the island. Heath claimed to have spoken with the

two prisoners, he later told the House of Commons that the ‘two men are living in

reasonable conditions, with a considerable degree of freedom on the island’. 918 The

Observer covered Heath’s visit to Bahrain and Jidda Island. In conclusion of the visit

Heath noted: ‘What I saw completely disproves the wild, exaggerated accusations

made about the way these men would be treated if they were returned to

Bahrein’. 919

915 C.D. Belgrave, ‘Bahrain Arabs’, The Times, 28 December 1960, 9.
916 Al-Bakir, From Bahrain to Exile, 436-37.
917 TNA, FO 371/149134, Adams at FO to Singapore, 3 January 1961.
918 HC Deb 30 January 1961, vol 633, cols 596-603.
919 ‘Mr Heath “rejects charges about Bahrein gaol”’, The Observer, 17 January 1961, 10.

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