UN Review of Saudi Arabia’s Abominable Human Rights Record
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Horrific Saudi human rights abuses need no elaboration. Its longstanding violations are the worst among despotic Arab regimes.
Its wealth is used to commit horrendous high crimes domestically and abroad, along with enriching its favored ruling family members and co-conspirators against peace, equity and justice for all.
Yet the kingdom is one of 47 UN Human Rights Council (HRC) members, mocking what it claims to stand for.
The same goes for many of its other member-states – notably despotic Brazil, Egypt, Kuwait, Ukraine, the UAE, and other notorious rogue states.
Riyadh’s earlier bid to head the HRC failed. Yet in 2015, it was shamefully chosen chair a five-member HRC panel, likely engineered by Washington.
Its other members are all horrific human rights abusers, including Algeria, Chile, Greece and Lithuania. They’re charged with reporting on abuses worldwide they commit and support.
The Human Rights Council largely serves US and other Western interests. Michel Chossudovsky earlier called it “a mouthpiece for NATO’s ‘Humanitarian Interventions’ under the doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect (R2P).”
UN High Commissioners for Human Rights are reliable imperial tools, one-sidedly supporting US-led Western interests, including naked aggression against nonbelligerent countries threatening no one.
UN member-states undergo what’s called a Universal Periodic Review every four years in Geneva. On Monday, the Saudis were grilled on its deplorable human rights record, warranting expulsion from the HRC and world body – what should happen but won’t.
Criticism during Monday’s grilling wasn’t strong enough for the kingdom’s longstanding human rights abuses, its fantasy reforms, the brutal Khashoggi murder, and most important the kingdom’s alliance with Washington’s orchestrated aggression in Yemen and support for regional terrorist groups it falsely claims to be combatting.
Bandar Al Aiban led Riyadh’s delegation in Geneva. He heads the kingdom’s so-called human rights commission – the Saudis notoriously contemptuous of all human rights.
The Trump regime’s delegation in Geneva’s call for “(a) thorough, conclusive and transparent (Khashoggi murder) investigation carried out in accordance with due process with results made public” was code language for supporting coverup and shielding crown prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) of responsibility for the murder he clearly ordered.
Washington’s call last week for conflict resolution in Yemen belies its naked aggression in the country since October 2001, wanting it continued, not ended.
Amnesty International’s Middle East director of campaigns Samah Hadid denounced the “deafening silence” of UN member states about Saudi atrocities in Yemen – supported and encouraged by Washington under Republicans and undemocratic Dems.
“The Saudi government’s long-standing repression of critics, exemplified by the extrajudicial execution of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month, has until recently been willfully ignored by UN member states,” Hadid stressed.
Rule of law in the kingdom is absent, regime criticism not tolerated, elections prohibited, human rights flagrantly violated.
Saudi minors found guilty of nonviolent offenses can be beheaded, whipped or stoned to death brutally.
Saudi human rights activist Abdulaziz Almoayyad said the regime doesn’t give a hoot about ordinary people routinely abused – only how it’s perceived in the international community, mainly by the US-led West.
On Monday, the Turkish language Sabah broadsheet said nine days after Khashoggi’s murder, an 11-member Saudi “coverup team” was sent to eliminate all evidence of what happened.
Chemist Ahmad Abdulaziz al-Janobi and toxicology expert Khaled Yahya al-Zahrani were members of “the so-called investigative team” – scrubbing the consulate facilities and grounds of all incriminating evidence from October 11 – 17, before returning to the kingdom on October 20.
Turkish investigators were denied access to the consulate, the consul general’s residence, and grounds until crew members completed their coverup work.
Five weeks after Khashoggi’s abduction and murder, the Saudis continue shielding MBS.
In Geneva, Bandar Al Aiban said the kingdom will “proceed with the (whitewash) investigation into this case (to bring) all the (convenient patsy) perpetrators to justice.”
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
