The United Nations must suspend Saudi Arabia’s membership from the Human Rights Council or risk further damaging the council’s credibility, rights defenders said in a letter sent to the international body on Wednesday.
“What’s particularly shocking is the deafening silence of the international community, which has time and again ceded to pressure from Saudi Arabia and put business, arms and trade deals before human rights despite the Kingdom’s record of committing gross and systematic violations with complete impunity.”
—Richard Bennett, Amnesty InternationalThe groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, point out that Saudi Arabia has used its membership to obfuscate its human rights abuses in its coalition’s military engagement in Yemen.
“Saudi Arabia has amassed an appalling record of violations in Yemen while a Human Rights Council member, and has damaged the body’s credibility by its bullying tactics to avoid accountability,” said Philippe Bolopion, deputy director for global advocacy at Human Rights Watch. “UN member countries should stand with Yemeni civilians and suspend Saudi Arabia immediately.”
Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses in Yemen are so well-documented that the European Union, Dutch lawmakers, and rights groups throughout the world have called on the international community to issue an arms embargo against the country.
But an arms embargo has yet to happen. And in one recent air strike, American-made bombs decimated a densely populated market, killing over 100 people, including 25 children.
Yet when the UN recently added the Saudi-led coalition to a blacklist of armed groups killing and maiming children around the world, the oil-rich country threatened to withdraw funds from UN programs aiding Palestinian refugee children, prompting UN leader Ban Ki-Moon to remove the Kingdom from the ignoble list.
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