<h2>London Arms Fair Prevented an Amnesty International Expert</h2>

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Amnesty International saw an incredulous and unprecedented situation when one of their experts was not allowed to the Defence and Security Equipment international arms fair. Oliver Sprague, Amnesty UK’s Arms Control Programme Director, says he was prevented from entering the DSEi event at the ExCel conference centre on Wednesday. Sprague has registered for the event and also attended the previous arms fair without any problem. He said that was refused entry with no explanation other than that he “didn’t meet the criteria for registration”. Mr. Sprague is the reputed name in arms control regulations and he has been invited myriads of times to address the speech.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Pakistan are given the red-carpet treatment at DSEi, yet we’re shown the door. It’s outrageous and deeply disturbing. Every year we’ve monitored the fair and - worryingly enough - every year we've actually found torture or other illegal equipment being advertised. The organizers will doubtless be delighted to have avoided headlines about leg-irons or electro-shock batons being offered for sale at DSEi, but the truth is we simply don’t know what horrendous equipment might be advertised for sale at Docklands this year. Sprague Said.

This week’s DSEi was attended by 30,000 visitors and we can’t comment on the individual applications for accreditation. Among those visitors include 930 journalists from outlets including The BBC, The Times and Al Jazeera. DSEi has also been attended by a number of MPs. A spokesperson for DSEi said.
 
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