How did Saudi Arabia manage to get on the panel of Human Rights Council?
Yes the news is real. The same country that repeatedly and persistently violated human rights through its strict laws, beheading and stoning people to death as punishment for crimes they were accused of committing. The same country which does not recognize fundamental rights for women; forbidding them from driving and from speaking to men, and of course obliging them to wear a Burqa and only to go out in public if escorted by a male relative or husband.
Leaked diplomatic news have uncovered under the table deals between Britain and Saudi Arabia to ensure both nations ‘seats on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2013, according to the Guardian in an article criticizing the UK for its secret deal with the Saudis.
In parallel, last September, a young 21-year-old Saudi activist was sentenced to death by crucifixion then beheading after his pro-democracy protests.
The question remains: what do backroom deals tell activists in Saudi Arabia and the region fighting for freedom and human rights? Is change and democracy even possible for the Arab region in the midst of such diplomatic deals?
On the other hand, on the 27th October 2015, Lebanese authorities at the airport of Beirut arrested Saudi Arabia’s prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Abdulaziz and others, over seizure of 2 tons of captagon and cocaine. The drugs were packed in cases to be loaded into the prince’s private jet heading back to Riyadh.
Captagon is a synthetic stimulant, widely used in the Middle East according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. It has reportedly been used by ISIS fighters in Syria to help them to survive long battles.
This incident poses numerous questions: who is the receiver of the drugs? And what’s the role of Saudi Arabia in such a drug trafficking scandal?
This only adds to the list of human rights violations committed by the Kingdom, and its plausible role in instigating violence in the region.
by Rola Mckey
