US Senate seminar on torture in Saudi Arabia

Mohammed Al-Menshawi, Washington

A seminar on "Torture in the Kingdom" is being held in a Senate chamber on Thursday, where a number of activists and jurists are speaking, highlighting the bad human rights record of Saudi Arabia.

Walid Fadihi, a Saudi-American doctor who is also detained in Riyadh, also speaks to the representatives of research centers and human rights organizations.

This and other events reflect a growing trend in Washington to shed light on Saudi Arabia's widespread abuses of political opponents, which have brought shock to the facade of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The American criticism of Riyadh is accompanied by a parallel path that criticizes and ignores the UAE's policies in Yemen, especially with the US media focusing on human rights violations, specifically detainees, as well as the systematic policies of the UAE to exploit Yemen's goods.

The US State Department joined in its annual report on the situation of human rights. The report focused on the violations of the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the report was exposed in a large area to the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2 last.

The foreign ministry criticized the Saudi authorities' handling of the crime, the attempt to deny it and cover it up at the beginning, and the secret formal trials it conducts.

The report pointed out that the Saudi public prosecutor arrested 11 suspects in the case, did not specify their names, jobs or what they did.

The report did not stop Khashoggi's death, but also pointed out that Saudi Arabia had not punished those accused of violations in other cases, thus enhancing the environment of impunity. The violations included extrajudicial killings, summary executions, enforced disappearance and torture.

In the UAE, the report said abuses include arbitrary detention of political activists and torture in prisons, noting that Abu Dhabi authorities are not investigating the abuses. The report focused on accusations by international organizations of the UAE army of killing civilians in Yemen and disrupting aid.

Proponents position
On Sunday morning, Ali al-Shihabi, president of the Arabia Foundation in Washington, and one of the most important voices of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the US, appeared on the program "GBS" presented by the thinker and media Fareed Zakaria on CNN to defend Register Saudi Arabia.

Al-Shehabi stressed the importance of Saudi Arabia to American interests in the region. He wrote two days later on Foreign Policy that Mohammed bin Salman came to stay. He warned against continuing pressure on Saudi Arabia and the Saudi crown prince for the threat to stability in the region and Washington's interests. , As it has to work with the next king, which is expected to continue half a century, he said.

"No logic or excuse can change the reality: Mohammed bin Salman is a problem for the United States, he is not an ally, or at best he is a reckless tyrant governor who happens to be an enemy of the United States," said David Miller, a former US official and researcher at the Wilson-Aaron Institute. To have some interests with us. "

"We are not a Jeffersonian democracy; we are a different country and a society that does not suit the democracy of the West," Ali al-Shihabi said on American television, defending Mohammed bin Salman.

Shihabi has always denied any role for the crown prince in Khashoggi's murder, focusing on the Saudi government's investigation, and many of those responsible for the murder were punished.

The Arabiya Foundation reprints the writings and writings of experts and academics close to the Saudi crown prince, such as Princeton University professor Bernard Heikal, for example.

Endeavor withdrew from a contract worth $ 400 million with the Saudi government because of the consequences of Khashoggi's assassination.

Movements do not stop
The US Senate voted Wednesday night, with 54 votes to 46, to stop US military support for the Saudi-UAE alliance in Yemen.

Earlier, Republican and Democratic members of the Senate submitted a draft resolution calling for Saudi Arabia to be banned from nuclear technology, especially with regard to uranium enrichment.

Congressional efforts to punish the two States have also not stopped by considering legislation prohibiting the export of arms to them.

On the other hand, US courts continue to be an important target for the victims of the policies of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, both innocent victims in Yemen or those who have been abused in Saudi Arabia by US citizens such as the family of doctor Walid Fitiihi.