The Women 20 Summit (W20) hosted virtually by Saudi Arabia this month must be used to speak up for jailed Saudi women’s rights champions, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said, calling on participants to refuse to play a role in the kingdom’s “whitewashing efforts”.
Attendees of W20 – a summit that is sponsored by the Group of 20 (G20) coalition of nations and that makes sure gender considerations are reflected in world leaders’ agendas and policy commitments – must advocate for the end of all discrimination against Saudi women, HRW said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The Saudi government’s use of women’s rights to divert attention from other serious abuses is well-documented,” it said.
“Recent changes, including the right to drive and to travel without male guardian permission, might be significant but do not hide the fact that some of the women who campaigned for these changes still languish behind bars.”
HRW said participants should be aware of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s government’s crackdown against women’s rights activists.
“Beginning in May 2018, authorities arrested prominent activist Loujain al-Hathloul and several others, just weeks before the driving ban was lifted,” the group said.
“Al-Hathloul, well-known for her campaigning against the driving ban, was held incommunicado for three months following her arrest, and family members say that authorities subjected her to electric shocks, whippings, and sexual harassment in detention.”
According to HRW, others have faced the same or similar abuse.
“While courageous women are subjected to torture for peaceful activities, the Saudi government seeks to assert itself on the international stage as a ‘reforming’ power’,” HRW said.
W20 participants should not play a role in Saudi Arabia’s “whitewashing efforts” and must use their platform to speak up for Saudi women’s rights champions, HRW said.
“If they are committed to ‘realising opportunities for all’, that includes all Saudi women activists behind bars, and numerous unnamed victims of discrimination,” the statement said.
DISSIDENT:=A group of Saudi dissidents exiled in countries including the United Kingdom and United States have announced the launch of an opposition party, the first organised political resistance under King Salman’s rule.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that does not tolerate any political opposition, but the formation of the National Assembly Party on the anniversary of the kingdom’s founding came amid a growing state crackdown on dissent and freedom of expression.
Past attempts to organise politically in the Gulf state in 2007 and 2011 were suppressed and members arrested.
“We hereby announce the establishment of the National Assembly Party, which aims to institute democracy as a form of government in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
The development is unlikely to seriously undermine the authority of the Arab world’s most powerful ruling family. But it poses a fresh challenge to Saudi Arabia’s rulers as they grapple with low crude oil prices and gear up to host a G20 summit in November amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The party is headed by prominent London-based human rights activist Yahya Assiri, and its members include academic Madawi al-Rasheed, researcher Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, US-based Abdullah Alaoudh and Canada-based Omar Abdulaziz, sources close to the outfit told the AFP news agency.
“We are announcing the launch of this party at a critical moment to try to save our country … to institute a democratic future and to respond to our people’s aspirations,” Assiri, the party’s general-secretary, told AFP.
Assiri, a former Royal Saudi Air Force officer, founded the London-based human rights organisation ALQST, which has catalogued what it calls widespread state abuses including arrests of female activists, academics and royal family members.
The announcement comes at a time when “the scope for politics has become blocked in all directions”, the party statement said.
“The government constantly practices violence and repression, with mounting numbers of political arrests and assassinations, increasingly aggressive policies against regional states, enforced disappearances and people being driven to flee the country,” it added.
Rasheed, the party’s spokeswoman, stressed that its founders had “no personal animosity with the ruling family”.
But the absence of an independent judiciary, the government’s tight control of the local media and “muzzling of public opinion” were other factors that led to the group’s formation, the party statement said.