Saudi incapable of security at Hajj pilgrimage: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Massoud Shadjareh, a political analyst, about Head of Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization Saeed Ohadi calling for the formation of a fact-finding committee to investigate last year’s human crush which killed thousands of pilgrims during Hajj rituals in Saudi Arabia.

Here is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Walk us through the comments made by Saeed Ohadi, one being the call for a fact-finding committee looking into last year’s Mina tragedy and also the issuance of a lawsuit based on a wide range of evidence against the Saudis.

Shadjareh: Well I think the scale of the massacre last year actually deserves and demands full investigation and that full investigation is ongoing and it needs to come to conclusion and it needs to indeed look at the whole spectrum of the events that took place and responsibility or lack of responsibility and indeed if there is criminal charges or not.

But I think what is very clear even without that full investigation, what is very clear is that the Saudi government is not capable of discharging their responsibility for securing and making a secure Hajj for the pilgrims who are going and it is not just the incident of Mina.

Prior to that we had massacres after massacres and incidents after incidents, every couple of years a huge number of people perish because of the lack of ability and concern by the Saudi regime which really brings us to the point that are they really capable of discharging this huge responsibility towards the safety of all pilgrims, millions of people who go to Saudi Arabia and the reality is that that is not the case and we could come to that conclusion even without full investigation of what happened in Mina, we come to that conclusion because when you look at the whole spectrum of what the Saudis are doing, their oil fields are being run by the foreigners, their airports are being run by the foreigners, even their kitchens are being run by the foreigners, they are not really capable of doing anything themselves.

So why is it that suddenly we are let to believe that they could run such an event of Hajj without participation of others and if they cannot do that, and if the reality is that they are incapable of running such a huge process, then [the] international community and Muslim community internationally needs to take charge of this because enough is enough.

Yes, in one aspect we need to hold those who committed the atrocities and created the environment where people perished to account, but on other side we really need to stop this happening every few years and the reality is that it is not going to stop unless we remove this responsibility away from those who are not capable of discharging i.e. the Saudi royal family.

And I want to say another thing. The Saudis are doing a propaganda that they want a spiritual Hajj instead of a political Hajj but the reality is that they are being political. They want the politics of the United States, they want the politics of the Israelis, what they want is politics of the status quo which is resulting in hundreds and millions of Muslims being killed all around the world and being oppressed and silenced and so the reality is that they are not asking for a spiritual Hajj instead of political Hajj but it is political and politics of the oppressors.

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