We should not ignore the human rights abuses committed by Saudi Arabia’s justice system in the name of security
Two weeks ago today the Saudi Arabian authorities announced that 331 defendants had been found guilty of terrorism offences in 179 separate cases. You would have thought that such a sequence of trials and convictions would be major news. It isn’t. Aside from a limited burst of publicity following the Saudi Justice Ministry’s announcement, the whole affair is shrouded in deepest secrecy.
Who are those that make up this vast number of people? What are their offences? Are they all Saudis, or are their foreigners amongst them? Do our own security forces know anything about the cases?
One person who might know something is Prince Nayef, Saudi Arabia’s veteran interior minister. He has been the country’s politician in charge of national security for a stunning 34 years (making our home secretaries seem like political mayflies). He’s the man who announced last October that 991 people had been charged with suspected involvement in terrorism. Back in 2007, he said that Saudi Arabia had detained more than 9,000 security suspects since 2001. Of these, 3,106 were still in custody at that time.
Beyond the sporadic announcement of mind-boggling numbers and the occasional well-constructed journalistic tour of a “re-education” facility, the Saudi system is buried in secrecy. What we do know is that it is characterised by appalling human rights violations: arbitrary arrest, torture, unfair trials, flogging and execution. At Amnesty International, we also believe the situation is getting worse.
In a report just published, we highlight some of the human rights violations perpetrated by Saudi Arabia’s authorities in the name of security and fighting terrorism. Some of the detail is shocking, not least for the residents of al-Jouf who awoke one morning in 2005 to see on public display the bodies of three men who had been executed and then crucified. Majed Nasser al-Shummari and Mislat al-Mutayri were arrested in 2002-3 and respectively sentenced to three years and two years plus flogging. They’re still in jail today. Non-violent critics of the government have been caught in the net, along with lawyers and human rights defenders.
But should our own government care? Every now and then the FCO does express broad concern about human rights in Saudi Arabia. It’s difficult to feel that this is an agenda item at top-level discussions and the Saudi government has proven adept at using its geopolitical position and oil wealth to deflect criticism. But there are a number of reasons why it’s important to consider a more outspoken approach.
First, Britons can find themselves caught up this. For example, a group of British men including William Sampson endured sleep deprivation and torture before being hauled in front of TV cameras in 2001 to “confess” their crimes. This followed a series of bomb attacks and shootings that the authorities unconvincingly attributed to turf wars between western bootleggers.
Second, in the current circumstances, any secret information shared with the UK by Saudi general intelligence or other agencies is potentially tainted as torture evidence. The situation also makes it virtually impossible to safely deport any critic of Saudi Arabia back to the country, given the fundamental concerns about torture and lack of due process. Third, the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia is just plain wrong – and our government should acknowledge this in plain terms.
There’s also a new reason for the FCO to look again at things in the Saudi kingdom. If Britain didn’t open its eyes to Saudi injustice during the fake bootlegging affair, it ought to now. It is continuing to negotiate with the US government over the release from Guantánamo Bay of a Saudi national called Shaker Aamer. He’s a long-standing UK resident, with a young British family in south London. If the government fails to secure his release back to these shores, he may find himself swallowed up in Saudi Arabia’s secretive and unaccountable justice system.
Saudi Arabia has genuine security issues to confront. Scores of its own civilians have been killed in bombings and shootings by armed groups. Fifteen of the 9/11 attackers were from the kingdom. Responding to these threats is necessary, but by failing to respond within a framework of human rights, the Saudi Arabian detention system is another side of the same degraded counter-terrorism coin as the Guantánamo detention facility in which Shaker Aamer continues to reside.
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Peace and Justice Post 
Obama Escalates Afghanistan Quagmire
July 23, 2009Patrick Krey, New American, July 23, 2009
It could be argued that the single biggest contributor to President Barack Obama’s election victory was voter dissatisfaction with former President Bush’s neoconservative warmongering foreign policy (which was embraced by Republican presidential candidate John McCain). Ironically, since taking office, Obama has turned out to be eerily similar in the warmongering department.
One of Obama’s first foreign policy decisions as the commander-in-chief was to copy Bush’s Iraq troop “surge” with a surge of his own in Afghanistan. The U.S. troop presence has drastically increased from 32,000 at the start of 2009 to about 57,000 presently with an anticipated cap around the 68,000 mark (which would more than double the U.S. commitment to the region). Like the salesman on a late-night infomercial typically proclaims, “But wait — there’s more!” Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the number of boots on the ground could climb even beyond the 68,000 number. In a question and answer session at Fort Drum, Gates said that what U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, who was recently appointed as the new commander of NATO, reports back to him could influence the decision to send even more troops to war. McChrystal is preparing a classified report for the Defense Secretary on Afghanistan according to CNN.
McChrystal is expected to complete a classified report for Gates by the end of this month, assessing where the war stands, and what needs to be done. He will tell Gates whether he needs more U.S. troops to fight the escalating conflict, according to a senior U.S. military official.… The review is also expected to recommend that the number of Afghan troops be increased beyond the goal of 134,000, other military sources said.
McChrystal is already seeking to increase troop levels there by pleading with the British to send more troops. McChrystal also stated that the conflict shows no sign of coming to a near halt. “It will go on until we achieve the progress we want to achieve…. It won’t be short.” The British casualties in Afghanistan recently just climbed above the number of those who died in the Iraq conflict. Things continue to deteriorate in the region where attacks are up 70 percent over last year. Unlike in America where the marital woes of the stars of Jon & Kate Plus Eight dominate the headlines, in the U.K., the rising death toll and grim analysis of prospects for success have generated controversy and debate over British participation in the war. Such a dialogue has alarmed the Obama administration, which fears the same might happen in the United States, according to the Financial Times.
Britain’s increasingly heated debate about its role in Afghanistan has sparked concern in Washington about the sustainability of the military strategy and the US public’s own willingness to commit troops for the long term, senior officials and analysts say.… A senior US official told the Financial Times that there was “some level of anxiety” within Barack Obama’s administration about the UK debate. “It’s hard to see our most capable partner struggling in this debate…. If we are going to have to backfill European countries that decide to leave, could we sustain that with US public opinion? That’s an open question.”
Unfortunately for our brave men and women in the U.S. armed forces, the current administration seems more concerned with public opinion polls than preventing U.S. casualties in an unnecessary and unconstitutional nation building project. The Associated Press reports that Obama’s surge is already proving very deadly.
July is shaping up as the deadliest month of the Afghan war for U.S.-led international forces, with the number killed already matching the highest full-month toll of the nearly eight-year conflict…. As of Wednesday, at least 46 international troops, including 24 Americans, had been killed in Afghanistan this month…. That matches the tolls for the two previous deadliest months — June and August of 2008. The rate of deaths in July — about three a day — is approaching some of the highest levels of the Iraq war. [Emphasis added.]
One has to wonder how long it will take the American public to wake up from their mainstream media-induced slumber to recognize that the man sold to them as a peace candidate is turning out to be just as bad of a warmonger, if not worse, than his much-maligned predecessor.
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Tags:Afghan war, Afghanistan, Bush’s warmongering policy, deaths, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, President Barack Obama, U.S. armed forces, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, US troops escalation
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