UN bribed to turn blind eye to Saudi rights violations: Analyst

The United Nations Human Rights Council recently renewed Saudi Arabia’s membership. The decision drew widespread criticism in light of the kingdom’s extensive human rights violations both inside and outside the Arab country. The move comes in spite of the fact that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both severely censured Saudi Arabia for committing war crimes in neighboring Yemen. Press TV has interviewed two analysts for its program 'The Debate' to get their opinions on the United Nations' latest controversy.

Political commentator, Scott Bennett, criticized the United Nations for neglecting war crimes and other human rights violations committed by Saudi Arabia. “The United Nations is assuming a posture of complete complicity with Saudi Arabia’s inhuman tyrannical war crimes, human rights [violations], suffering, slavery and religious persecution.”

He noted, “The United Nations is as guilty as its member state (Saudi Arabia) by not stopping it and by not objecting to it.”

Commenting on why he thinks the UN has failed to properly address Saudi crimes both within and outside the country, he stated, “The United Nations is demonstrating itself as [a] political prostitute. They (UN officials) are serving their masters and that is the American money, the Israeli money and the Saudi Arabian money through bribes.”

According to the commentator, “The United Nations is in social and political breakdown without any genuine authority or legitimacy. Because they (UN officials) are the puppets and they are the tools of the United States, Israel, Mossad, the United Kingdom and France.”

Giving his reasons as to why the Riyadh regime is not qualified to have a seat on the UNHRC or any other human rights organizations, he cited the kingdom's lack of respect for the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and of religion, as stipulated in the 1948 Human Rights Declaration, which sets the foundation for the United Nations.

“The Saudi Arabian activities, politics, laws and regulations that are grossly inhuman against women, violating of women, violating of journalists and violating of freedom go without question,” Bennett said, adding that the United Nations has been bribed to turn a blind eye to the Saudi misconducts.

The analyst also pointed to Saudi Arabia’s continued support for terrorists as another reason why it is not entitled to a seat on the UN rights council.

Bennett recalled that during the time when he used to serve in the US Central Command, reports were handed over to the State Department and Congress on Saudi Arabia financing terror cells through its Swiss bank accounts, which were totally ignored by American authorities. He also referred to the Clinton Foundation as a big money-laundering entity that the Saudis and the Qataris were using to finance terrorism and Wahhabi extremism in Libya and Syria.  

“The Saudi Arabians are completely disqualified for any participation, God forbid, any leadership in the United Nations. Because it (the Saudi regime) persecutes anyone who religiously pursues any other religious expression, be it Christian, be it Shia, be it Yazidi, be it Buddhist and be it any religion,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lawrence J. Korb, a US foreign policy and national security analyst opposed the argument that the United Nations and the Human Rights Council were being run by the United States and stated, “It is not the United States that’s deciding who gets on this council. We only have one vote.”

Korb also touched upon the Saudi war on Yemen. “There is no doubt about the fact that they are involved in a war in Yemen and they have made mistakes. But it’s not a war of aggression,” he said arguing that Saudi Arabia is seeking to help the Yemeni "government" take back power. He was making a reference to Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi who resigned as Yemen's president and fled the capital Sana'a.

Saudi Arabia has a long history of violating the rights of women and minorities and even support for the Takfiri mercenaries who are wreaking havoc in the Middle East and North African. But the United Nations has refused to suspend the regime’s membership over such behavior.

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