LONDON: Britain has continued to sell arms to Bahrain despite the continuing political unrest and tension in the small Gulf kingdom, official figures disclose.

According to the figures, the UK government approved the sale of military equipment valued at more than 1m British pounds after the violent crackdown on demonstrators a year ago. They included licences for gun silencers, weapon sights, rifles, artillery, and parts for military training aircraft.

Also cleared for export between July and September last year were naval guns and components for detecting and jamming improvised explosive devices.

The figures came to light as Bahraini security forces fired teargas and stun grenades at protesters on the eve of first anniversary of the uprising.

Armoured vehicles patrolled the capital, Manama, after protesters flung volleys of petrol bombs at police cars. There was also a massive police presence in Shia villages surrounding Manama, with helicopters buzzing overhead, underlining the concerns of the monarchy about new unrest within Bahrain’s Shia majority.

At least 24 people were arrested.

Activists call Bahrain’s Pearl uprising the “unfinished revolution” of the Arab Spring, crushed by the intervention of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states while western countries looked the other way.

Bahrain’s government has pledged to implement the recommendations of an inquiry into last year’s unrest, which cost 35 lives and saw hundreds arrested or dismissed from their jobs.

After the exposure a year ago of Britain’s approval of sales of arms to Bahrain, Libya and Egypt — including crowd control equipment, guns and ammunition — the government revoked 158 export licences, including 44 covering military exports to Bahrain.

The latest figures, published on the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills website, also show that in the third quarter of last year Britain exported arms more than 1m British pounds worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, including components for combat vehicles. During last year’s uprising, Saudi Arabia sent forces to Bahrain in British military trucks. Britain also supplied equipment valued at more than 1m British pounds to Egypt’s armed forces.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, admitted to a committee of MPs last week: “We do trade with governments that are not democratic and have bad human rights records ... We do business with repressive governments and there’s no denying that.”

He was giving evidence to the Commons committee on arms export controls, whose chairman, the former Conservative defence minister Sir John Stanley, accused the government of adopting a “rosy-tinted” and “over-optimistic” approach to authoritarian regimes.

The foreign secretary, William Hague, told the committee that Saudi forces were sent into Bahrain last year “to guard installations but not to take part in dealing with unrest in Bahrain, so they did not fall foul [of the export guidelines]”.

Cable announced that the UK government had reviewed its system of monitoring arms exports and that in future ministers would be able to “suspend” arms exports quickly in the event of political upheaval or a regional crisis.

Sarah Waldron, campaign co-ordinator for CAAT, the campaign against the arms trade, said: “The UK seems to have learned absolutely nothing from the last year. In the glare of media attention in February last year it revoked some arms licences — but the latest figures show that it was quickly back to business as usual.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: “The government takes its export responsibilities very seriously, and operates one of the most rigorous arms export control regimes in the world. All licence applications are considered on a case-by-case basis against agreed international criteria. Each assessment we make takes into account the intended end use of the equipment, the behaviour of the end user ... We pay particular attention to allegations of human rights abuses.”

By arrangement with the Guardian