World must probe Saudi crimes in Yemen: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Hazem Salem, an Egyptian activist in Cairo, to discuss Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes against Yemen.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel about this continuing war and, of course, this attack on this wedding ceremony certainly has hit a nerve even with the international community? Do you think that there will finally be calls for the Saudis to end this war?

Salem: The fact is the world has been silent about the crimes of the attacks of Saudi Arabia in Yemen for the last more than six months, and they are just trying to report in the media in order to lower down the tension against the Saudis, but there should be criminal investigation, there should be steps taken in the human rights organizations, steps taken in the international tribunals and courts against these crimes against humanity.

It is not just reporting them in the media and saying we do not like that. It is that the people who did this should be held accountable before the international community and this is actually not happening and the Saudis, if they get along with that for once, they will continue to do that and it is a whole campaign to terrorize the Yemenis, and this is totally contradictory to the other path which should have been there in Yemen, which is dialogue and reconciliation.

You know that the quartet that led the dialogue in Tunisia won the Nobel Prize for peace. So Saudis did not allow the Yemenis to have peace, did not allow the Yemenis to talk to one another and started a war that Yemenis, all of them, never wanted it.  

Press TV: Obviously you are sitting in Egypt, and Egypt has very good relations with the Saudis. What do you think it will take for the Arab world to rise up and tell the Saudis enough is enough?

Salem: It really takes to uproot the authoritarian regimes, to uproot the regimes that are bribed by Saudi Arabia, to uproot the media people and the politicians who are using the Saudi money and the Saudi aid and the Saudi media to just propagate the Saudi story. It needs a lot and this is not going to happen from the Arab League or many of the Arab countries.

The fact is Saudi Arabia is using its influence and its finance and its money to dominate the Arab world to do whatever it wants especially in Yemen, and the Arab League has been a failure regarding Yemen and the Yemenis, and this is not new for the Arab League. Actually it is the Arab people who… should stop the Saudi aggression in Yemen and should tell the Saudis to be more subtle into the issue of getting the Yemenis to have self-determination, the way the Palestinians should have self-determination, instead of a Saudi war that might lead to a Saudi occupation of Yemen.

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