CAAT Tells UK Govt.: Stop Arming Saudi Arabian Regime

Local Editor

Anti-arms trade activists were demanding that the UK stops peddling arms to Saudi Arabia, as the death toll in Yemen passes 2,000. Their call came as a Saudi blogger faced a decade in prison and 1,000 lashes for expressing his political views.

The 10-year and 1,000 lashes sentence for Raif Badawi was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Gulf kingdom's capital, Riyadh, last week. The ruling had sparked outrage among social justice groups around the globe.

Andrew Smith of Campaign against the Arms Trade [CAAT] said the human rights situation in Saudi is "dire."

"The fact that it is also the world's largest buyer of UK weapons is a sign of the real hypocrisy at the heart of UK foreign policy," he said.

"What right does the UK have to talk about human rights and democracy when its ministers are directly promoting arms sales to a regime that tortures bloggers?"

Nonetheless, over the course of its first four years in government, the previous Tory-Lib Dem coalition plowed ahead with the UK's well-trodden policy of licensing £3.8 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia.

"This included licenses for combat aircraft, components for bombs, weapon sights and tear gas. There is no suggestion that this will change under the current government," CAAT said.

The charity, which carried out detailed analysis on the global arms trade, insisted that the British government promoted and condoned these arms sales.

British ministers had reaped the benefits of intimate ties with Saudi rulers, while UK royals had been "co-opted into promoting arms sales," CAAT said.

Further, CAAT's Andrew Smith said the British government was enabling arms companies to profit from oppression.

"The government is working hand in glove with arms companies like BAE Systems that are profiting from the oppression taking place," he said.

"With the intensification of the crackdown on dissent, and with the humanitarian catastrophe being unleashed on Yemen, we have to ask, what would it take for the UK to finally stop selling arms to this terrible regime?"

When asked whether it would continue to preside over UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a spokesperson for Britain's Foreign Office said that "all exports of arms and controlled military goods are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria. Respect for human rights in the destination country is mandatory under these criteria"

"The Saudi authorities have legitimate defense and security equipment requirements. Saudi Arabia has been the victim of external aggression and domestic terrorist threats over many years. The UK supports efforts by the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] states to improve regional security cooperation. Defense exports to Saudi Arabia and other GCC states are consistent with this policy."

Though, the Saudi regime had long been criticized by human rights advocates over its oppressive and cruel treatment of women, political dissidents and others.

The Saudi government's introduction of fresh anti-terror legislation, which casts atheists and political campaigners as enemies of the state, had been decried by CAAT and human rights campaigners worldwide. The autocratic regime also presided over a doubling of executions in 2015.

Moreover, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is becoming increasingly worse, according to the World Health Organization [WHO]. The group warned that the "unnecessary loss of innocent lives cannot go on." It said that the crisis-ridden country requires urgent aid.

Hence, UK campaigners were calling upon the British government to intervene in the case of blogger and activist Raif Badawi, and demanded the Saudi government drop the charges leveled against him.

As British officials met other global leaders at the G7 summit in Germany, calls mounted for the Tory government to condemn Saudi Arabia's treatment of Badawi, and demand his immediate release.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team