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It really sickens me to listen to the hypocrisy of western politicians calling for both sides to “exercise restraint” in the popular protests that are now sweeping across the Arab world ( Death tolls rise in Bahrain and Libya , 19 February). These same politicians have maintained a deafening silence for years when it suited them to support a swath of autocratic (often oil-rich) Arab governments. I think in particular of Libya, which I recently visited as an academic from a leading UK university. Having moved from pariah to western friend, it was awash with new American oilmen making big bucks and contractors building the first western hotels. But those few frightened Libyans who would risk talking to me spoke of 40 years of totalitarian rule, political prisoners, torture and the complete impossibility of change. In the last couple of days one of my Libyan students here in the UK managed to contact his family in the east of the country (internet down, many tele phones cut off and no journalists) and they spoke of cold-blooded massacres by “foreign mercenaries brought in from neighbouring countries”. The words of that student, in tears in my office, still ring chillingly in my ears: “He [Gaddafi] is completely mad. This is not in like Egypt or Tunisia. He will massacre every one. May God help us all!” Name and address supplied • What are teargas canisters and “crowd control ammunition” ( UK supplied weapons used in Bahrain crackdown , 18 February) if not weapons “which might be used to facilitate internal repression”? Why were licences for them approved after the government had “closely consider[ed] allegations of human rights abuses”? Allan Baker Kettering, Northamptonshire Libya Bahrain Egypt Tunisia Middle East Protest guardian.co.uk