SUADI ARABIA AND THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: A SICK JOKE FOR 2014


From next year Saudi Arabia will be a member of the UN Human Rights Council.

This week saw the sentencing of Saudi human rights activist Umar al-Saed to four years in prison and 300 lashes for peacefully campaigning for the independent human rights organisation the Saudi Political and Civil Rights Association, (ACPRA).
Umar al-Saed

Mr al-Saed, 24 was arrested on April 28th this year after refusing interrogation without a lawyer. Currently seven other members of ACPRA are in prison.
In March a judge decided to ‘dissolve’ ACPRA and sentenced two of its founders, Mohammad al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Hamid to 10 and 11 years in prison respectively.
The sentencing of ACPRA members is part of a sustained campaign currently being waged by the Saudi government on human rights activists.[1]

 The citizens of the Arab kingdom are denied free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of worship, the freedom to be openly agnostic, atheist or gay, equality of the sexes, a free press and equality before the law. Indeed Saudi Arabia denies any of the basic founding principles encompassed by the concept human rights.

Saudi Arabia is incidentally being joined on the council by Russia, China and Cuba!

The UN has now become a sad joke. As we used to say “you couldn’t make it up!”


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