Saudi Arabia executions: Philip Hammond condemned by rights campaigners for 'excusing' mass killings

The Foreign Secretary says 'just to be clear, these people were terrorists' - despite at least four of the 47 being arrested over political protests. Rights groups say Britain continues to 'parrot the propaganda' of its Middle East ally

The UK Foreign Secretary has been accused of “parroting Saudi Arabian propaganda” after he refused to condemn the mass execution of 47 people in the conservative kingdom.
The government says it has expressed its “disappointment” at the killings, which included a prominent Shia cleric and sparked a diplomatic fallout across the Middle East.
Appearing on the BBC's Today programme, Philip Hammond was asked if Britain was willing to be “more robust” in denouncing the actions of its ally.
But he instead preferred to point to the fact that Iran “executes far more people than Saudi Arabia does”, and said: “Let us be clear, first of all, that these people were convicted terrorists.”
According to rights groups, at least four of the 47 were arrested and killed in relation to political protests, including Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr himself.

But when this was put to Mr Hammond, he suggested there was no point objecting to all Saudi executions because “Sharia law calls for the use of the death penalty and however much we lobby countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran… they are not going to end its use”.
The Foreign Secretary also revealed that he spoke to his Saudi Arabian counterpart in December about reports in this newspaper and others that a mass execution was about to take place. “I urged him that they should not go ahead,” he said, but to no avail.
Human rights groups said it was “appalling” that Mr Hammond refused to go beyond the standard assertion that the UK “does not support the death penalty under any circumstances”.
Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said the minister appeared to be “alarmingly misinformed about the mass executions”, repeating the Saudi crown prince’s line from an interview with the Economist where he described all those killed as “terrorists”.
“By refusing to condemn these executions and parroting the Saudis’ propaganda, labelling those killed as 'terrorists', Mr Hammond is coming dangerously close to condoning Saudi Arabia’s approach.”

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses

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David Mepham, the UK director of Human Rights Watch, told the Huffington Post that “British policy on Saudi Arabia has reached a new low”.
“It is appalling that Phillip Hammond refused to condemn the mass beheadings that took place in Saudi on January 2, including the execution of the prominent Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
“Yet pressed on the case in this morning’s BBC interview, the Foreign Secretary chose not to criticise Saudi executions but rather to contextualise, explain and seemingly excuse them.”
Reprieve said its figures showed that of the 158 people killed by the Saudi state in 2015, 72 per cent were convicted of non-lethal offenses such as political protest or drug-related crimes.
It added that, despite Mr Hammond’s “welcome” lobbying on their behalves, three juvenile offenders – Ali al-Nimr, Dawoud al Marhoon and Abdullah al-Zaher – remain on death row “and could be executed at any time”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-executions-philip-hammond-condemned-by-rights-campaigners-for-excusing-mass-killings-a6802641.html

Yeah like when do theleft ever march against Saudi in mass numbers?
Point to hand

tomato and tomototo

Richard The Lionheart wrote:Yeah like when do theleft ever march against Saudi in mass numbers?
Point to hand

tomato and tomototo

I hope you're not looking for any Western politician of prominence to condemn Saudi Arabia -- they're too much in bed with them. It's despicable, but they're trying not to throw the global economy into turmoil.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Richard The Lionheart wrote:Yeah like when do theleft ever march against Saudi in mass numbers?
Point to hand

tomato and tomototo

I hope you're not looking for any Western politician of prominence to condemn Saudi Arabia -- they're too much in bed with them. It's despicable, but they're trying not to throw the global economy into turmoil.

What did you fail to understand from?

tomato and tomototo

Richard The Lionheart wrote:Yeah like when do theleft ever march against Saudi in mass numbers?
Point to hand

tomato and tomototo

Standing against Britain’s sickening complicity over the crucifixion of a Saudi child
Richard Howitt
9 October, 2015

1.7k


18

Labour has successfully proposed a European Parliament resolution calling for Ali Mohammed al-Nimr to be pardoned

 
One of the clearest signals from Labour since Hilary Benn became shadow foreign secretary and Jeremy Corbyn party leader is that of renewed internationalism.
There is no doubt that Labour is demonstrating a clear resolve to expose double standards where David Cameron pursues dealings with other governments by turning a blind eye to the violation of human rights.
Labour will not ourselves be complicit in British complicity to rights abuse. Such is the case of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr.
Ali is the young man who was arrested whilst taking part in an Arab Spring democracy protest in Saudi Arabia. He faces execution through beheading and crucifixion, in the case movingly cited by Jeremy himself in his party conference speech last month.
This week, David Cameron was forced to admit on television that he had not personally intervened in the case, as Jeremy had challenged to him to do.
Cameron could not justify why Britain had made an explicit deal with the Saudis, for the two countries to vote for eachother in the election to the UN Human Rights Council.
Nor has our Tory prime minister responded to Labour pressure to withdraw a bid from our own Ministry of Justice to work for the very same Saudi Prison Service which is responsible for Ali’s impending execution.
Now that’s what I call complicity.
So today Labour ratcheted up the pressure – on our government and on the Saudis – by successfully proposing a European Parliament resolution calling for Ali to be pardoned.
I said it was sickening for my own country to be complicit in the case.
On behalf of Labour MEPs, I pointed out that Saudi Arabia’s election to the Human Rights Council led to it chairing the council’s panel of experts, despite the use of the death penalty against juveniles being explicitly prohibited by the Gulf state’s signature of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
A European Parliament vote last year, also thanks to Labour pressure, had insisted that counter-terrorism cooperation between the European Union and the Saudis should be subject to human rights safeguards.
Yet Ali has been convicted as a terrorist, despite all reports suggesting that there is no evidence to support the claim, that a confession was forced out of him through torture and with his court appeal having taken place in secret.
His biggest crime is probably only that he is the nephew of a Shia cleric, who is himself a prominent dissident against the country’s ruling Sunni royal family.
Ali also had the temerity to teach first aid, ironic given that doctors have been barred from treating him for his suffering in prison.
Despite all of this, David Cameron was happy to justify his position on the case this week, precisely by citing counter-terrorism cooperation with Britain.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the world has surely learnt the lesson that long-term success in the fight against terrorism can only be achieved by upholding human rights, not in their violation.
But not according to British Conservatives.
I was happy to say that we want good relations with the Saudis, and fully accept that some diplomatic messages can be more effectively delivered in private.
But standards must be respected, and the balance is certainly wrong in this case, with Cameron confessing he has not made the representations asked of him, at all.
The victim at the heart of all of this was a typical seventeen-year-old boy who liked clothes, cars, his blackberry phone and hanging around with friends.
Labour will keep up the pressure for his release. Each day, we can only hope that the representations do not come too late. Ali al-Nimr was a boy. Let him be a man.
Richard Howitt MEP is Labour spokesperson on Foreign Affairs in the European Parliament, and chair of parliament’s Working Group on the Middle East and North Africa


http://leftfootforward.org/2015/10/standing-against-britains-sickening-complicity-over-the-crucifixion-of-a-saudi-child/









Saudi Arabia executions: Labour demands 'secret' UK-Saudi deal be published and scrapped
Shadow human rights minister Andy Slaughter says it would be 'innappropriate' for the UK to continue bilateral cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the wake of the mass executions carried out on Friday

Labour has written to Justice Secretary Michael Gove demanding that the agreement signed between the UK and Saudi Arabian governments over judicial cooperation be published and abolished following the mass execution of 47 people in the Gulf state on Friday. 
The ‘memorandum of understanding’ – signed in September 2014 – tied the two countries into cooperating on judicial matters and Downing Street confirmed that the cooperation continues, despite Mr Gove cancelling the Government’s £6m prison training contract with Saudi Arabia last October. 
Ministers are reluctant to cut ties with such a powerful ally in the Middle East and the Prime Minister's spokeswoman said maintaining on-going relations with Saudi Arabia was important in order to be able to raise concerns over human rights abuses.

But in an open letter to Mr Gove, Andy Slaughter, shadow human rights minister, said the mass executions on Saturday was proof that cancelling the prisons contract had “no effect” on pressurising Saudi Arabia to reform its hard-line justice system. 
He said it would be “inappropriate” for the UK “to be seen to be cooperating with the Saudi justice system” and told him to release the yet-unpublished memorandum of understanding.
“Serious concerns have been raised not only about the sentences and the manner in which the executions were carried out but also whether due process has been followed and whether the defendants received a fair trial,” Mr Slaughter added in the open letter to Mr Gove.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-executions-labour-demands-secret-uk-saudi-deal-over-judicial-cooperation-be-published-a6796276.html






Loads more, but I don't want you to have a meltdown (again)

Complicity?
Over what?
The English language?

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Richard The Lionheart wrote:Yeah like when do theleft ever march against Saudi in mass numbers?
Point to hand

tomato and tomototo

I hope you're not looking for any Western politician of prominence to condemn Saudi Arabia -- they're too much in bed with them. It's despicable, but they're trying not to throw the global economy into turmoil.

No, they are making sure they keep their 'influence' and their mates stay rich.

It's utterly disgusting.