Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s most ruthless regimes, a crime family dictatorship masquerading as legitimate governance. It’s notorious for public beheadings, whippings, torture, wars of aggression and other lawless actions.
Despotic rule is absolute, no opposition tolerated, no civil or human rights afforded ordinary Saudis – no freedom of expression, assembly, association, internal movement, foreign travel, or religion.
No right to choose their government or have easy access to education, healthcare, public housing, legal services or social ones. Political parties are forbidden. So are collective bargaining rights. Internet and academic freedom are prohibited.
Arbitrary arrest and detention are commonplace. So are state-sponsored kidnappings and disappearances – due process and judicial fairness denied. Torture and other abuses substitute.
Since March, US orchestrated Saudi terror bombing and blockade continue mass slaughtering Yemenis, mostly civilians, committing willful genocide, millions of people at risk.
None of this matters. It’s swept under the rug, ignored. In June, Riyadh’s UN ambassador in Geneva, Faisal bin Hassan Trad, was quietly chosen head of a five-member UN Human Rights Council panel charged with reporting on abuses worldwide – mocking the legitimacy of the initiative.
In 2013, Saudi Arabia disgracefully became a UN Human Rights Council member. Its bid to head HRC failed. Perhaps choosing Trad to chair the five-member panel was a consolation prize – maybe arranged by Washington.
Its other members include Algeria, Chile, Greece and Lithuania – all human rights abusers.
With rare exceptions, the Human Rights Council serves US and other Western interests. Michel Chossudovsky calls it “a mouthpiece for NATO’s ‘Humanitarian Interventions’ under the doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect (R2P).”
Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay (2008 – 2014) was a reliable imperial tool, one-sidedly supporting US-led Western interests.
Her successor, Jordanian prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein represents business as usual, continuing the same policies as Pillay, paying lip service to human rights, ignoring horrendous abuses committed by Western and allied countries – including naked aggression against nations threatening no others.
Appointing human rights violating countries like Saudi Arabia to head a panel judging the records of other nations mocks the legitimacy of the initiative.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at [email protected].
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III“.
http://www.claritypress.com/
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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