Anger after Saudi Arabia 'chosen to head key UN human rights panel' | World | News | The Independent

There are no words to describe the utter shock this news has generated:

The Saudi regime makes a mockery of every single American ideal. It bans freedom of speech, prohibits religious liberty, and executes accused adulterers and gays. By giving a pass to one of the cruelest dictatorships on Earth, we betray the very essence of the American experience.
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In its slavish, bi-partisan and seemingly bottomless appeasement of Saudi Arabia, the free world is exacerbating an already dangerous situation. The Saudi regime will fall, radicalism will rise, and terror will continue to spread. The West could improve the chances of stability and peace by supporting moderates, defending political prisoners and linking arms to improvements in human rights. The more open the society, the less it will threaten the world.

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The United Nations is coming under fire for handing Saudi Arabia a key human rights role even though the Kingdom has “arguably the worst record in the world” on freedoms for women, minorities and dissidents.

Critics, including the wife of imprisoned pro-democracy blogger Raif Badawi – sentenced to 1000 lashes for blogging about free speech – say that the appointment is “scandalous” and means that “oil trumps human rights”.

Mr Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, who is leading an international campaign to free her husband, said on Facebook that handing the role to Faisal bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador at the UN in Geneva, was effectively “a green light to start flogging [him] again”.

UN Watch, an independent campaigning NGO, has discovered that Mr Trad, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador at the UN in Geneva, has been elected as chair of a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council.

Anger after Saudi Arabia 'chosen to head key UN human rights panel' | World | News | The Independent

URGENT::Raif Badawi's wife outraged as UN appoints Saudi Arabia rep to lead human rights panel

As Ali Rizvi has stated, "This is why the Nobel Prize should step in and send a clear message from the civilized world:"

The United Nations has appointed Saudi Arabia representative Faisal bin Hassan Trad as head of a key human rights panel that is tasked with naming experts that determine global human rights standards. Among those criticising the UN for the appointment is non-governmental watchdog UN Watch and Ensaf Haidar, the wife of the imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi, who has been flogged in public in Saudi Arabia.

Haidar claimed that this will lead to Saudi being able to flog Badawi again. UN Watch has called upon US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and EU foreign minister Federica Mogherini to condemn the appointment.

UN Watch director Hillel Neuer said that the choice is scandalous, saying that the country has beheaded more people in 2015 than the Islamic State has. "Petro-dollars and politics have trumped human rights," he said. "Saudi Arabia has arguably the worst record in the world when it comes to religious freedom and women's rights, and continues to imprison the innocent blogger Raif Badawi.

"This UN appointment is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief, and underscores the credibility deficit of a human rights council that already counts Russia, Cuba, China, Qatar and Venezuela among its elected members."

Raif Badawi's wife outraged as UN appoints Saudi Arabia rep to lead human rights panel