HRW raps 'longstanding' rights abuses in Saudi Arabia

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has lashed out at Saudi Arabia for its failure to improve its human rights record over the last seven months under Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as the Riyadh regime’s ruler. 

In a report published on Thursday, the New York-based rights advocacy group referred to the record number of executions, repression of pro-reform activists and dissidents, violation of foreign workers' rights, and systematic discrimination against women and religious minorities as the main issues of concern in Saudi Arabia.

“We’ve seen little sign in his first seven months that King Salman is prepared to end longstanding abuses at home,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East and North Africa director. 

The HRW report warned that under Saudi Arabia’s newly-appointed ruler, 119 people, including convicts for nonviolent drug offenses, were executed, showing a significant increase when compared to 88 recorded in 2014.

The document also criticized Saudi Arabia for failing to protect the rights of the country’s nine million foreign workers, noting that many foreign workers are subject to hard labor.

The report further accused the kingdom of imposing bans on the public practice of all religions other than Islam and restricting the access of the country’s Shia minority to public education, employment and the justice system. 

Saudi officials refuse to register political or human rights groups, leaving members subject to prosecution, the document added.

Saudi Arabia’s deadly aggression against Yemen

Elsewhere in its report, HRW expressed concern about the Saudi airstrikes against Yemen, saying the aerial military campaign, which is being conducted with the US backing, “has included indiscriminate attacks and the use of cluster munitions that may be war crimes.”

The rights group called on US President Barack Obama to raise the issues of the Saudi repression at home as well as its deadly air raids on Yemen during his upcoming meeting with King Salman.

“The US rhetoric about ‘countering violent extremism’ while protecting human rights is undermined when it partners with countries like Saudi Arabia that refuse to implement the same ideals at home,” Whitson said.

Saudi Arabia launched its military aggression against Yemen on March 26 – without a UN mandate – in a bid to undermine Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to the country’s fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh. The Al Saud regime also imposed an aerial and naval blockade on the neighboring impoverished country.

Nearly 4,500 people have been killed in the Yemeni conflict, the World Health Organization said on August 11. Local Yemeni sources, however, say the fatality figure is much higher.

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