Hill: Absolute humiliation of Biden’s human rights policies by Saudi rulers

According to Fars News Agency International Group, news site “HillIn a note written by Laura Kelly, US President Joe Biden stepped into the White House using the adjective “hated” for Saudi Arabia and promised to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy. Give.

“But experts on regional issues say while the president,” Kelly writes [آمریکا] “From time to time, he has asked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to appease human rights issues, including dealing with the opposition. He has failed to impose heavy costs on Riyadh in this regard.”

“The US government emphasizes that it raises the issue of human rights in a meeting with Saudi officials, and also refers to the assassination of Saudi-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashgechi at the behest of Saudi officials at the behest of the Crown Prince,” the memo said. “But at the same time, he sees the relationship between Washington and Riyadh as vital.”

“US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Thursday, along with the Saudi Foreign Minister, that the two countries are working together on ‘very important issues’ from climate change to energy and the issues of Yemen and Iran,” Kelly added. “We will continue to see continued progress from Saudi Arabia on the human rights situation,” he said.

“But critics say the Saudis are ignoring the US government’s rhetoric,” he wrote. “Human rights lawyers say the opposition continues to disappear and be imprisoned, and allegations of torture are very common in prisons, and long prison terms for alleged crimes are out of place for decades.”

“I believe the Saudis are demonstrating an utter humiliation of Biden’s human rights policy,” Kelly was quoted as saying by Brookings Institution project manager Bruce Riddle. “They had eight months to evaluate the US government and have come to the conclusion that it is not serious.”

“Abd al-Rahman al-Sadhan has made a critical joke for setting up a Twitter account, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and a 20-year travel ban, and his sister Arij’s Biden government wants to hold Riyadh accountable with more force. . “He is one of 89 Americans with whom the nonprofit Freedom Initiative estimates that they will disappear, be detained or banned from traveling abroad in 2021.”

“A senior US government official responded to Hill by saying that senior US government officials have raised the issue of Abdul Rahman directly with senior Saudi officials, including Crown Prince Mohammed. “During his visit to Riyadh last month, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also raised the issue of Americans detained in the country,” said the US official.

“Biden made harsh statements about the situation in Saudi Arabia during his election campaign,” Kelly was quoted as saying by al-Sadhan’s sister. In the weeks leading up to Biden’s inauguration, the Saudis took steps to address their most critical issues. Riyadh authorities, for example, released a woman who had been sentenced to six years in prison for driving.

At the same time, he writes, al-Sadhan’s family also received promising calls about the possible release of Abdul Rahman. The call came shortly before the revelation of a US secret report linking Mohammed bin Salman to Khashgechi’s assassination, but the situation changed rapidly after bin Salman was not placed in the US sanctions package.

“However, the US government defended the decision, and White House spokesman Jen Saki said the package was” structurally unacceptable, targeting, monitoring, harassing dissidents and journalists, “Kelly said. “He will confront.” “But Freedom House researcher Katherine Groot says she is still documenting actions by Saudi officials against critics and journalists by monitoring, issuing inappropriate sentences and harassing them in cyberspace and in the real world.”

“Hundreds of journalists and activists, bloggers and government critics are still being harassed,” Groath was quoted as saying. We also know that in the past year alone, there have been incredible reports of torture in Saudi prisons and ill-treatment of detainees. “All of this together paints a very black picture.”

Kelly also quotes a geopolitical expert as saying, “The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan carried out by the Biden government has made it increasingly dependent on regional allies. The US government has placed itself in a situation where it is unable to work on human rights without worrying about declining cooperation with Saudi Arabia or disrupting US regional strategy. “There were still spaces to pursue human rights while maintaining cooperation with Saudi Arabia, but the US government did not pursue them seriously enough, and for this reason, this restriction was created by the US government itself.”

“Democrats in Congress do not seem to be seriously criticizing the Biden administration, and Republicans do not seem to care about human rights abuses in the country because of their close ties to the Saudis,” he said.

Kelly writes that the only thing the Democrats in Congress did was criticize the non-sanctioning of bin Salman and introduce a bill banning bin Salman from traveling to the United States. Gary Connolly, a Democrat in the US House of Representatives who represents Khashgechi’s constituency, also passed a bill to “protect the Saudi opposition” earlier this year.

“However, these efforts have been unsuccessful, given the sharp bipolarity in Congress over domestic bills and the focus on other political goals in West Asia,” he said. These goals include engaging with Riyadh to end the Yemeni war, advancing the normalization of relations with the Zionist regime and the rights of the Palestinians, removing China from the region, and countering Iran’s actions in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and its nuclear program.

“The Biden administration continues to say it is focused on human rights,” Laura Kelly concludes. “Human rights are at the heart of our dialogue with US partners around the world, including Saudi partners,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told Hill. We do not hesitate to talk about the shortcomings that have occurred in this regard. “We have made it clear that we are disappointed with the reports we hear from Saudi court rulings and the travel ban issued to Abdul Rahman al-Sadhan.”

Earlier, this columnist Hill also mentioned in a note the inability of the Biden government to advance the compromise plan between the Arab countries and the Zionist regime. “The advancement of efforts to establish peaceful relations between Palestine and Israel through the Ibrahim Accords is supported by cross-party support in the US Congress,” the memo said. The 2021 Normalization of Relations with Israel Act calls on the US State Department to assess the progress of peace between Israel and Palestine through the Ibrahim Agreement. “Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. (More details)

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