Monday, April 12, 2021
Saudi Arabia human rights abuses detailed in US State Dept. report
By ZACHARY KEYSER
One major area of concern for the State Department is the “arbitrary” detention and disappearances of Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Salman and his father.
The US State Department released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, and within it raised concerns over numerous areas in which it believes Saudi Arabia is guilty of abusing human rights within its sovereign borders.Aside from restrictions on freedom of speech, press, access of information and gender equality, the US has been more focused on the political crackdown that has been under way within the royal family since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – commonly referred to as MBS – came into prominence in 2017. The report detailed the instance in which Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Salman and his father were arbitrarily detained, along with 11 other princes, after they allegedly staged a sit-in at a royal palace in Riyadh “to demand the state continue to pay their electricity and water bills,” the report said.According to AFP, Prince Salman and his father have never been interrogated, charged or put on trial over the course of their detainment that began more than two-and-a-half years ago. Without saying so outright, or mentioning the political implications, the State Department pointed to instances where MBS allegedly seized power through internal politics within the royal family, and the sudden disappearances of many of his competitors who could have challenged him for the throne. Another major area of concern for the State Department is the “arbitrary” detention and disappearances of Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz and other prominent members of the Saudi royal family in March 2020.“In early March, authorities reportedly detained four senior princes: Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, King Salman’s full brother; his son, Prince Nayef bin Ahmed, a former head of army intelligence; Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, former crown prince and interior minister; and his younger brother, Prince Nawaf bin Nayef,” the report said. The report noted that the detentions were not announced publicly by the government. A regional source said at the time that MBS “accused them of conducting contacts with foreign powers, including the Americans and others, to carry out a coup d’état.”“With these arrests, MBS consolidated his full grip on power. It’s over with, this purge,” the source added, indicating that no rivals remain to challenge his succession to the throne.Within the same span of time, Saudi forces also detained dozens of “Interior Ministry officials, senior army officers and others suspected of supporting the alleged coup attempt,” according to the report.While Nayef, who was a senior Interior Ministry official, has been released, there has been no word on the whereabouts of the other three princes mentioned in the March sit-ins as of the writing of the report. And considering the accused are princes, their cases “have to be treated with dignity,” Saudi sources have earlier said. This could hold the meaning behind, or a cover-up for, their whereabouts being kept secret and trial proceedings kept under wraps – as was the aim of the statement. MBS, King Salman’s son and de facto ruler of the country, which is the world’s top oil exporter and a key US ally, has made major moves to consolidate power since ousting Mohammed bin Nayef as heir to the throne in the 2017 palace coup. Later that year, he arrested several royals and other prominent Saudis, holding them for months at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel in an anti-corruption campaign that caused shock waves at home and abroad. MBS has also fueled resentment among some prominent branches of the ruling family by tightening his grip on power. Some critics have questioned his ability to lead after the 2018 murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents and the largest-ever attack on Saudi oil infrastructure, sources have said. He also faced international criticism over the Yemen war and the detention of women’s rights activists seen as part of a crackdown on dissent. Critics have said that royals, seeking to change the line of succession, view Prince Ahmed, King Salman’s only surviving full brother, as a possible choice who would have support of family members, the security apparatus, and some Western powers. Prince Ahmed’s whereabouts, as aforementioned, are unknown.Prince Ahmed was one of only three people on the Allegiance Council, made up of the family’s senior members, who opposed MBS becoming crown prince in 2017, sources have earlier said. Saudi watchers have said there is no evidence Prince Ahmed is willing to take the throne. Saudi authorities have not commented on issues of succession or criticism of the crown prince’s leadership. MBS is popular among Saudi youth and has staunch supporters within the royal family, which numbers around 10,000 members. The crown prince has been lauded for easing social restrictions in the conservative Muslim kingdom and trying to diversify the economy away from oil.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/us-state-dept-details-saudi-arabia-human-rights-abuses-in-report-663677
COLUMN: Saudi Arabia’s continued human rights abuses cannot be supported by the U.S. any longer
https://themaneater.com/stories/opinion/column-saudi-arabias-continued-human-rights-abuses-cannot-be-supported-by-the-us-any-longer
Commentary: Rampant gun violence makes U.S. a proven hypocrite on human rights
WASHINGTON, April 11 (Xinhua) -- A recent string of mass shootings in the United States have once again proved that the country, always proclaiming itself a defender of human rights, is indeed a hypocrite, as deadly gun violence rate keeps ballooning while gun proliferation remains rampant.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday depicted gun violence in the country as "an epidemic" and "an international embarrassment," highlighting a chronic human rights crisis that has reached epidemic proportions and long blighted the United States.
Over the last few weeks, the country witnessed mass shootings occur nearly back-to-back in Orange, California, Boulder, Colorado, the Atlanta area in Georgia and Central Texas.
As of April 7, 11,535 Americans were killed by gun violence this year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. Last year, the number of gun violence death topped 435,000, including nearly 300 children, more than any other year in at least two decades.
Although Washington has largely rejected being held accountable for the ravaging crisis, its failure to protect its citizens from gun violence has been constantly reviewed and bombarded by international human rights bodies including the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
The "right to life, liberty and security of person" is codified in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "Life" also comes before "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" among the three unalienable rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
However, for decades, Washington has failed to live up to the legal promises made to its people. The right to bear arms too often trumps the right to life as a result of powerful lobbying by interest groups such as the National Rifle Association, erecting a major barricade to gun control legislation.
Multiple complex legal, political and cultural factors lead to the high rate of gun violence in the United States.
The most conspicuous one is that guns are unreasonably easy to get in the country. Gun control advocates even lamented that it's "easier to buy a gun than to register to vote" in the United States, which bills itself as a champion of freedom and human rights.
As a consequence, gun proliferation has been appalling. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, the United States owns 46 percent of the global civilian-owned guns, according to a report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey.
In 2020, industry data and firearms background checks show that nearly 23 million guns were purchased in the country, up by 65 percent from the previous year, according to U.S. consulting firm Small Arms Analytics.
A more underlying reason for the deteriorating gun violence in the United States is that the government makes little effort to address the root causes -- racism, poverty and lack of access to education.
Specifically, eight people were shot dead at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area in March, of whom six were Asians, stoking fears over rising hate crimes against Asian-Americans.
Meanwhile, the country's public divide on gun control has revealed the cavernous gap between rural and urban Americans. Many of the supporters for gun ownership take hunting and fishing as a way of life in states with large rural populations, while for many in coastal cities, owning guns is unacceptable.
Unfortunately, gun control legislations are extremely hard to get through the U.S. Congress due to partisan politics and the influence of interests groups.
The hot-button issue has for decades been a major point of contention between Democrats and Republicans. The GOP favors gun-owners' rights, arguing that gun laws will not keep people safe, but rather take away the rights of law-abiding citizens.
In contrast, Democrats contend that gun laws will make a difference, saving people's lives and preventing firearms from getting into the hands of the wrong people.
Last month, the House of Representatives approved a pair of bills aimed at expanding and strengthening background checks for gun buyers. Though widely popular with voters, the measures were expected to face strong GOP opposition in the Senate.
Biden, who campaigned on the issue of curtailing gun violence, is expected to proceed with piecemeal regulations through executive orders or tucking them into the massive infrastructure bill that is now taking shape in Washington.
Yet gun control advocates maintained that Washington's measures on gun control are far from enough. Without the right to life, it is impossible to enjoy other rights. The U.S. government has clear and urgent obligations to tackle gun violence.
Effective gun control is more about whether Washington has adequate political will and moral courage to take all measures necessary to protect people from gun violence. As Biden has said, "Enough prayers. Time for some action." And for real action.
http://en.people.cn/n3/2021/0412/c90000-9837977.html
Western media absent as Tokyo is about to dump radioactive water
Dumping nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean will cause infinite harm to the entire human race and the ecological environment on which the world depends. "It is a move that will have serious, long-term consequences for communities and the environment, locally and much further afield," according to report from environmental rights organization Greenpeace.
Japan's neighboring countries, including China and South Korea, will be the first to suffer from the serious pollution and it is also difficult for Western countries to stay aloof from the affair. As the world's oceans are connected, more countries will also be harmed by the nuclear wastewater sooner or later.
Such an apparently wicked act has not been jointly condemned by Western countries, and mainstream Western media which hold great international discourse power have not criticized Tokyo on a large scale.
It's a sharp contrast to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The Soviet Union was heavily attacked by the Western media back then and the West also used the disaster to instigate anti-Soviet Union sentiment. Today, Japan's radioactive wastewater may remain dangerous for thousands of years and may even cause human DNA changes, according to Greenpeace. The Western media's collective silence at this time has formed a sharp contrast
"In Western countries' view, Japan is an important ally of the US in Asia. Japan is consistent with Western political and economic systems and values. Therefore, the West often has a good impression of Japan's moves," Zhou Yongsheng, professor of China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Monday.
Western elites have always claimed to uphold high environmental protection standards, and they often use environmental issues to criticize China. Some of their accusations even sound ridiculous. For example, Time magazine published an article in January entitled "How China could change the world by taking meat off the menu," targeting China's rising meat consumption and trying to label China as a destroyer of the environment. However, Western media has been downplaying the US livestock industry's "contribution" to global warming.
Compared with meat consumption, Japan's releasing of polluted water into the Pacific will endanger the health of mankind. But Western media has lost their voice. "Western countries generally favor Japan and they are not even willing to criticize Japan's wrong moves. This is not an objective stand at all," Zhou said.
The Pacific is about to become the ocean of Japanese sewage. Relevant international organizations and media should have strengthened supervision on Japan, urged Japan to regularly release the status of nuclear sewage treatment and disclose the facts to the world to form a broader global consensus.
Although Japan has claimed that the wastewater will be diluted to meet international standards before any release, environmental protection agencies have questioned this. Greenpeace said in its report that Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japanese government bodies "appear to have conspired to make the crisis worse." And considering Japan's poor performance in the COVID-19 fight, there are reasons to doubt the Japanese government's wastewater handling.
#PPP says it is vacating all positions in #PDM, demands apology
Flanked by party leaders, Bilawal held a news conference to speak about the matters that came under discussion during the recently-held Central Executive Committee meeting of the party.
He said the CEC had come to the conclusion that resignations from the national and provincial assemblies should be "like an atom bomb".
Bilawal said the PPP's stance that the Opposition should not "abandon the Parliament and the Senate battleground" had been vindicated.
He said if the PPP had listened to other political parties in the Opposition and boycotted the Senate elections and by-elections, then it would have harmed democracy.
"We did not give the PTI government an open field to form a two-thirds majority in the Senate," he said, adding that the government lost on its "own pitch" when the PDM candidate won from the Nowshera by-election.
"We will not undermine these gains that the PPP has achieved after giving many sacrifices," he said. "When the PML-N was in power, we protected the Parliament then and we will protect the Parliament today."
He said those who wanted to resign from the Parliament, should do so.
"But, no one should try to impose their will or their dictation on any other political party," he said. "And the Pakistan Peoples Party will continue in its firm, consistent Opposition to the selected government that has been ongoing since day one and has not broken for a single day," stressed the PPP chairperson.
"The Pakistan Peoples Party rejects the so-called show-cause notice," he said. "Politics is done with equality and respect," he added.
"The PPP demands an unconditional apology to the ANP and to the PPP for this obnoxious attitude," he said.
Bilawal said the PPP stands by the ANP and would not abandon them under any circumstances. "There is no concept of show-cause notices in democratic alliances," he said.
He recounted the PPP's participation in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy and the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy.
"We condemn the politics of Opposition against members of the Opposition," he said.
The PPP chairperson said his party's doors were open for all other parties, adding that there should be a "working relationship" among them.
'PTI-IMF' deal
He spoke about the $500mn loan received by Pakistan from the IMF. "It [IMF deal] consistently targets the poor people of Pakistan," he said, adding that the government is putting the burden on the shoulders of the poor.
"Neither the details of the PTI's deal with the IMF have been shared with the people or their representatives," he said. "Whatever knowledge we derived about is was due to the IMF's documents," he added.
He blamed the government for conducting "a historic attack" on the country's economic independence, saying that through the draft State Bank of Pakistan ordinance that the Centre wanted to be passed, the government was ensuring that the central bank does not answer to the country.
"The PPP's Central Executive Committee rejects it [the ordinance] and we will, even in Ramadan, start a campaign against this PTI-IMF deal," he said.
'Confusing, contradictory policy on Kashmir'
The PPP chairperson said the government's policy on the contentious Kashmir issue was "contradictory and confusing". He said it was the obligation of the government to represent and be the voice of the oppressed Kashmiris in their time of need.
He said the BJP's manifesto spoke about annexing occupied Kashmir. "Despite that, during India's election campaign, the prime minister of Pakistan said if Modi wins, only then the issue of Kashmir will be solved," Bilawal stressed.
The PPP chairperson said "history will remmeber" this sentence by PM Imran Khan.
"History will remember there was a prime minister who was this inept and a failure on this issue," he lashed out at the premier.
Bilawal lamented PM Imran Khan had reacted to India's illegal August 5 move by saying: "What can I do?"
"And all of a sudden Imran Khan remembered that Modi, for whom he campaigned during the entire elections, was a fascist," he said, mocking the prime minister.
He then pointed out how the government had, at first, said it wanted to trade with India but later rejected its on move. "Khan can't seem to not make mistakes on Kashmir," he said. "And he keeps on making mistakes on Kashmir [again and again]," he said.
"He [Imran Khan] says at times that he is the ambassador of Kashmir but then acts as Kulbhushan Jadhav's lawyer," said the PPP chairperson.
Bilawal said "when a leader leads" the country by taking the Parliament and the people into confidence, then the country can tackle India and other powers in the world as well.
He said the PPP's CEC had decided to take up the issues of occupied Kashmir through its Kashmir Action Committee time and again, adding that it was the party's resolve to ensure the Parliament is taken on-board in matters concerning the masses.
2017 census results
Bilawal said the CEC also discussed the census 2017 results, adding that the PPP had conditionally accepted census 2017 results at first.
He said it was on the basis of the results of the census that the country's resources were distributed to provinces. Bilawal said the census 2017 were "de jure" results and not the "de jure" figures.
"It doesn't count the people actually living there and consuming figures," he said, adding that it was the PPP's demand that the de facto results be included in the census.
He demanded the government discuss the census results during a joint session of the Parliament. "A transparent census is necessary to empower the people of Pakistan," he said.
https://www.geo.tv/latest/344870-ppp-announces-resignation-from-all-pdm-offices
PPP has opposed the anti-people deal of PTIMF from day one as the details of the agreement between PTI government and the IMF have neither been laid before the Parliament nor made public, Chairman PPP
Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said that his Party has opposed the anti-people deal of PTIMF from day one as the details of the agreement between PTI government and the IMF have neither been laid before the Parliament nor made public.
Addressing a Press Conference following two-day meeting of the Party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) at Media Cell Bilawal House today, he said that this deal is detrimental to the people of Pakistan and the economy as a whole. “This move will be a burden on the poor people of Pakistan. We strongly condemn it and our party demands that PTI regime withdraw from this move. This deal is not in the interest of Pakistan which endangers its sovereignty and sky-rocket inflation through hike in prices of electricity and gas,” he added.
Talking about the issue of Kashmir discussed in the CEC, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the PPP and Kashmiri people have a three-generation relationship and his Party has never compromised on Kashmir nor will in future. Selected Prime Minister was praying for victory of Modi despite knowing that changing the status of Held Kashmir was part of BJP manifesto. When Modi changed the status of the held valley, the incompetent PM said what can he do, the PPP Chairman stated.
He further said that Parliament was not taken into confidence on Kashmir policy nor was it informed whether there will be trade with India or not. Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had said that Kashmir was an issue on which he could not err even in his sleep. But there is one Imran Khan, who does nothing but make blunders on this issue, he said adding that the people of Pakistan and Kashmir cannot afford an incompetent Prime Minister and the only way to get right on the Kashmir issue is to oust Imran Khan.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari informed that the CEC urged the Federal government to ensure the supply of vaccines to the citizens for the prevention of Corona virus and also rejected a possible amendment to the Pakistan Penal Code for taking action against critics of the armed forces. The CEC also expressed concern over the issue of hidden cameras in the polling booths during the Senate elections and described this act as tantamount to rigging in the Senate elections.
Talking about the census issue, the PPP Chairman said that the PPP has been expressing its objections and concerns on this issue since 2017. In order to avoid delays in the general elections and to hamper the democratic process, it was temporarily accepted on the condition that 5% census results be re-checked. Holding a fair and transparent census is as important as conducting fair and transparent general election, he said adding that PPP demanded a clean and transparent census and the issue would be taken up in a joint parliamentary session.
On this occasion, PPP Chairman announced the CEC decision for resignations from all the posts of PDM adding that we pursue politics with dignity and equality. Politics of the opposition against the opposition is unacceptable and CEC pledged that PTI regime won’t be allowed to sit comfortably, he added.
He further said that CEC has rejected the PDM’s show cause notice and decided to resign from all the posts in protest against the inappropriate behavior, procedures and attitude of some office-bearers of the alliance. There is no precedent in the country’s political history for such show-cause notices and CEC has demanded an unconditional apology from both PPP and ANP, he added.
The CEC noted that no show cause notice was given to anyone at a time when the action plan of the alliance was not being implemented. In Punjab, five Senate seats were given to PTI, but no notice was given. The CEC was of the view that resignations from the assemblies were an atomic bomb and should be used as a last resort. The PPP had the same stance yesterday and today. Those who want to resign may resign but do not dictate or impose their decision on others, he added.
PPP Chairman pointed out that if the by-elections had been boycotted at the behest of other parties, the PTI would have won all the assembly seats by now. We won’t back down from our struggle, will stand by ANP, and would make all decisions in consultation. “Our doors are open to any party that opposes the PTI regime,” he added.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that the loss of interlinking the long march with en masse resignations at the last moment harmed the opposition. Opposition’s opposition is unacceptable. PML-N has to decide whether to oppose selected Imran Khan and the Establishment or to oppose the PPP. He pointed out that PML-N had also tried to snatch the right of opposition leader from PPP in Gilgit-Baltistan.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/24639/