Saudi Arabia | Mohammed bin Salman attempts to divert attention away from appalling human rights record
With the world’s current focus on climate change, such an initiative will create the impression of a modern, forward thinking and environmentally responsible nation.
Politically this is a smart move, clearly designed to portray the Kingdom as being in tune with western norms and values.
Perhaps even to focus attention away from Saudi Arabia’s appalling human rights record.
Certainly Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is on record as admitting that “sportswashing,” – using sports to distract attention from the Kingdom’s human rights record – already paid dividends this year.
In June the Saudis successfully merged the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) with golf’s PGA Tour and the DP World Tour.
“If sports washing is going to increase my GDP by way of one percent, then I will continue doing sport washing,” he told Fox News in September of this year.
“I don’t care. One percent growth of GDP from sport and I’m aiming for another one-and-a-half percent – call it whatever you want, we’re going to get that one-and-a-half percent.”
Republican John Garamendi said “Saudi Arabia cannot be allowed to ‘sportswash’ its government’s horrific human rights abuses and the 2018 murder of American-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi by taking over the PGA.”
“PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan should be ashamed of the blatant hypocrisy and about-face he and the rest of PGA’s leadership demonstrated by allowing the sovereign wealth fund of a foreign government with an unconscionable human rights record to take over an iconic American sports league and avoid paying a penny in federal corporate income tax.
“This merger flies in the face of the PGA players who turned down hundred-million-dollar paydays from the Saudi-backed LIV to align themselves with the right side of history and human decency.”
Garamendi also raised the unresolved question of Saudi complicity, alleged or otherwise, in the 9/11 attacks as described in a December 2002 joint Senate-House intelligence committee report.
Saudi Arabia: A litany of Human Rights abuses
On December 10th 1948 Saudi Arabia, along with the Soviet Union, South Africa, and others of that ilk, abstained from the vote adopting the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights on the grounds that the declaration contradicted sharia law.
Saudi Arabia to this day has failed to ratify 10 protocols in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10th 1966.
These protocols include those pertaining to the rights of women, the rights of children, freedom of religion, and abolition of the death penalty.
In Saudi Arabia, in the 21st century, one can still be executed for witchcraft
In December 2011, Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded in the northern province of Jawf.
She was the second women to be executed for witchcraft in that year, bringing the annual total of executions on all charges in 2011 to 73.
Many of those executed have had no defence lawyer and are not informed about the legal proceedings against them, according to Amnesty International.
“While we don’t know the details of the acts which the authorities accused Amina of committing, the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion,” said Amnesty International’s Philip Luther, interim director of the Middle East and North Africa.
In 2012 Muree bin Ali bin Issa al-Asiri was beheaded for possession of talismans.
No details were given of exactly what he was found guilty of beyond the charges of witchcraft and sorcery.
Abdullah al-Derazi is currently imprisoned and facing imminent execution for expressing his religious identity and for protesting religious freedom conditions, “crimes” he allegedly committed when he was a minor.
He has been imprisoned since August 2014, has reportedly been tortured, and has been charged for organising – when he was still a minor – a terrorist cell.
Mass executions are not uncommon in Saudi Arabia: the current record is 81, executed in March 2022.
The total number of executions in the current year reached the 100 mark in September.
Public beheading, particularly of women, appears to be something of a spectator sport in Saudi Arabia.
Executions are held in major towns and cities in the Kingdom, usually on a Friday afternoon prayers, in a square in front of the Provincial Governor’s palace.
The amputation of hands as a punishment for theft remains permissible under Sharia law, but is rarely practised.
Modern Day Slavery in Saudi Arabia
Modern day slavery and forced labour are an everyday part of life in bin Salman’s Saudi Arabia.
The 2023 Global Slavery Index (GSI) estimates that on any given day in 2021, there were 740,000 individuals living in modern slavery in Saudi Arabia.
According to GSI this equates to a prevalence of 21.3 people in modern slavery for every thousand people in the country.
“Migrant domestic workers employed in Saudi Arabia have experienced physical, mental, and sexual abuse, excessive hours, withholding of wages, passport retention, and denial of food, rest, and medical care by employers in private homes and by recruitment agencies,” – GSI 2023.
Under the kafala system, created to supply cheap, plentiful labor in an era of booming economic growth, employers and recruiters threaten migrant workers with the potential loss of their visa to keep them in poor working conditions.
Leaving the workplace without permission is an offence that results in the termination of the worker’s legal status and potentially imprisonment.
Saudi Arabia has the highest prevalence of such practices of 11 countries in the Arab States region, and has the fourth highest prevalence out of 160 countries globally.
Saudi Arabia removed from the UN Human Rights Council
In October 2020 Saudi Arabia lost a bid to keep its seat on the 47-member UN Human Rights Council, the body which describes itself as “promoting and protecting all human rights around the globe.”
Analysts at the time reported that the move “demonstrates the deterioration of its image on the world stage following high profile human rights scandals including the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the detention of several women’s rights activists.”
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