Kiriakou writes: "Saudi Arabia, that champion of religious freedom, civil
liberties, and human rights, seems to have found itself as the new chair of
the United Nations Human Rights Council. This is despite the fact that the
Kingdom is having a bad year, even by Saudi human rights standards, and has
beheaded more people in 2015 than ISIS."
Left: Faisal Trad, Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Geneva, has been elected
Chair of the UN Human Rights Council panel that appoints independent
experts. Right: Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations
Office at Geneva. (photo: UN)
Saudi Arabia Has No Business Chairing the UN Human Rights Council
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
23 October 15
Saudi Arabia, that champion of religious freedom, civil liberties, and human
rights, seems to have found itself as the new chair of the United Nations
Human Rights Council. This is despite the fact that the Kingdom is having a
bad year, even by Saudi human rights standards, and has beheaded more people
in 2015 than ISIS. If any Saudi watchers thought for a moment that the
countrys new King, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, would be a progressive
and forward-leaning force, that idea was dispelled almost immediately.
Indeed, its been a busy year for the King.
The Western press has reported widely on King Salmans recent decision to
behead and then crucify a 17-year-old boy after convicting him of a wide
variety of capital crimes, including participating in an anti-government
protest, breaking alliance with the king, and sedition. The sentence is a
violation of international law, of course, as Saudi Arabia is a signatory to
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, although the
Saudis dont seem to care about that. The child is also a member of the
minority Shia Muslim sect, which the Saudis care even less about.
Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced in June to six years in prison and
1,000 lashes for creating a website where he talked about (gasp!) democracy
and human rights. Badawi even had the unmitigated gall to advocate religious
freedom in the Kingdom. U.S. officials, no doubt hoping to draw on
Washingtons special relationship with Riyadh, asked for leniency for
Badawi, but instead got a middle finger. The blogger will receive 50 lashes
a week until hes undergone 1,000.
And just this week a Saudi professor was sentenced to 10 years in prison and
barred from international travel for another 10 years for posting a video
online in which he called for equal rights for women. His multiple felony
charges included disobeying the ruler, founding a human rights
organization, and supporting protests. The professor was the third Saudi
human rights activist to be sentenced to prison in the past week.
Ive had my own personal experience in Saudi Arabia. I served there for
three months in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War. It was the
summer of 1991, and the U.S. had just won a war to protect Saudi oil. One
evening after work, I accompanied two female State Department officers to a
local mall in Riyadh. As per the U.S. Embassys agreement with the Saudi
government, our female officers had to wear a full-length black abaya,
which covered their entire bodies, and scarves to cover their hair, but they
did not have to cover their faces. That agreement did not stop two
mutawaeen, the Saudi religious police, from whipping them in the legs
with bamboo canes because they were uncovered. Shouting Prostitutes! the
mutawaeen tried to take both of my colleagues to jail for the night. A
protracted shouting match got us out of it.
It gets worse. The Embassys deputy chief of mission the second-ranking
officer in the Embassy happened to be married to an American woman who was
working as a nurse at the King Faisal Eye & Ear Hospital. He drove her to
work one day, looked around to see if anybody was watching, determined that
nobody was, and kissed his wife on the cheek. In seconds, two mutawaeen were
on him. They pulled him out of the car through the window and beat him so
severely that he had to receive more than a dozen stitches to close a wound
over his eye. The Embassy lodged a protest, the Saudi Foreign Minister
apologized, and the incident repeated itself over and over again over the
next 24 years.
So what can Washington do to influence its erstwhile dear friend and key
ally? It can get tough, which is exactly what was supposed to have happened
in 1992. That year, then-Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter pushed a bill
through Congress called The Religious Freedom Restoration Act . President
George H.W. Bush signed it into law. It called for an immediate cessation of
arms sales to any country that did not respect religious freedom. Great
idea, right? But Congress, in its infinite wisdom, also wrote in a waiver
provision, allowing the president to ignore the law if it was in the
interests of national security. So every year since 1992, every president
has given Saudi Arabia a waiver, thus allowing the Saudis to remain one of
the worlds worst offenders on religious freedom. And thats to say nothing
about womens rights, and the rights of children, liberals, or Shia Muslims.
The executive director of the human rights group UN Watch said last week
that Saudi Arabia has arguably the worst record in the world when it comes
to religious freedom and womens rights
This UN appointment is like making
a pyromaniac into the town fire chief. Hes right. And whats Secretary of
State John Kerrys position on Saudi Arabia leading the UN Human Rights
Council? His spokesman said, We would welcome it.
________________________________________
John Kiriakou is an Associate Fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies
in Washington DC. He is a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer and
former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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Left: Faisal Trad, Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Geneva, has been elected
Chair of the UN Human Rights Council panel that appoints independent
experts. Right: Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations
Office at Geneva. (photo: UN)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Saudi Arabia Has No Business Chairing the UN Human Rights Council
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
23 October 15
audi Arabia, that champion of religious freedom, civil liberties, and human
rights, seems to have found itself as the new chair of the United Nations
Human Rights Council. This is despite the fact that the Kingdom is having a
bad year, even by Saudi human rights standards, and has beheaded more people
in 2015 than ISIS. If any Saudi watchers thought for a moment that the
countrys new King, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, would be a progressive
and forward-leaning force, that idea was dispelled almost immediately.
Indeed, its been a busy year for the King.
The Western press has reported widely on King Salmans recent decision to
behead and then crucify a 17-year-old boy after convicting him of a wide
variety of capital crimes, including participating in an anti-government
protest, breaking alliance with the king, and sedition. The sentence is a
violation of international law, of course, as Saudi Arabia is a signatory to
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, although the
Saudis dont seem to care about that. The child is also a member of the
minority Shia Muslim sect, which the Saudis care even less about.
Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced in June to six years in prison and
1,000 lashes for creating a website where he talked about (gasp!) democracy
and human rights. Badawi even had the unmitigated gall to advocate religious
freedom in the Kingdom. U.S. officials, no doubt hoping to draw on
Washingtons special relationship with Riyadh, asked for leniency for
Badawi, but instead got a middle finger. The blogger will receive 50 lashes
a week until hes undergone 1,000.
And just this week a Saudi professor was sentenced to 10 years in prison and
barred from international travel for another 10 years for posting a video
online in which he called for equal rights for women. His multiple felony
charges included disobeying the ruler, founding a human rights
organization, and supporting protests. The professor was the third Saudi
human rights activist to be sentenced to prison in the past week.
Ive had my own personal experience in Saudi Arabia. I served there for
three months in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War. It was the
summer of 1991, and the U.S. had just won a war to protect Saudi oil. One
evening after work, I accompanied two female State Department officers to a
local mall in Riyadh. As per the U.S. Embassys agreement with the Saudi
government, our female officers had to wear a full-length black abaya,
which covered their entire bodies, and scarves to cover their hair, but they
did not have to cover their faces. That agreement did not stop two
mutawaeen, the Saudi religious police, from whipping them in the legs
with bamboo canes because they were uncovered. Shouting Prostitutes! the
mutawaeen tried to take both of my colleagues to jail for the night. A
protracted shouting match got us out of it.
It gets worse. The Embassys deputy chief of mission the second-ranking
officer in the Embassy happened to be married to an American woman who was
working as a nurse at the King Faisal Eye & Ear Hospital. He drove her to
work one day, looked around to see if anybody was watching, determined that
nobody was, and kissed his wife on the cheek. In seconds, two mutawaeen were
on him. They pulled him out of the car through the window and beat him so
severely that he had to receive more than a dozen stitches to close a wound
over his eye. The Embassy lodged a protest, the Saudi Foreign Minister
apologized, and the incident repeated itself over and over again over the
next 24 years.
So what can Washington do to influence its erstwhile dear friend and key
ally? It can get tough, which is exactly what was supposed to have happened
in 1992. That year, then-Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter pushed a bill
through Congress called The Religious Freedom Restoration Act . President
George H.W. Bush signed it into law. It called for an immediate cessation of
arms sales to any country that did not respect religious freedom. Great
idea, right? But Congress, in its infinite wisdom, also wrote in a waiver
provision, allowing the president to ignore the law if it was in the
interests of national security. So every year since 1992, every president
has given Saudi Arabia a waiver, thus allowing the Saudis to remain one of
the worlds worst offenders on religious freedom. And thats to say nothing
about womens rights, and the rights of children, liberals, or Shia Muslims.
The executive director of the human rights group UN Watch said last week
that Saudi Arabia has arguably the worst record in the world when it comes
to religious freedom and womens rights
This UN appointment is like making
a pyromaniac into the town fire chief. Hes right. And whats Secretary of
State John Kerrys position on Saudi Arabia leading the UN Human Rights
Council? His spokesman said, We would welcome it.
John Kiriakou is an Associate Fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies
in Washington DC. He is a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer and
former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize