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Saudi Beheading, Bombing Yemen — and on Human Rights Panel

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NPR reports: “U.S.-Backed Saudi Bombing Campaign Blamed For Civilian Deaths In Yemen.” The New York Times reports: “Saudi Objections Halt U.N. Inquiry of Yemen War.”

The Guardian states: “Britain conducted secret vote-trading deals with Saudi Arabia to ensure both states were elected to the UN human rights council (UNHRC), according to leaked diplomatic cables. … This week, a new diplomatic row has erupted over a Shia activist, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who faces death by crucifixion after being convicted at the age of 17 of joining an anti-government demonstration. Riyadh has sanctioned more than a hundred beheadings so far this year — more, it is claimed, than Islamic State. The Saudi foreign ministry files, passed to Wikileaks in June, refer to talks with British diplomats ahead of the November 2013 vote in New York.”

OMER AZIZ, omer.aziz at yale.edu
A fellow at the Yale Information Society Project and student at Yale Law School, Aziz recently wrote the piece “Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, and Their Gift to Yale.”

He said today: “Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemen is abhorrent. Over 2,000 people have been killed, and many more wounded, displaced, and traumatized. That the United States is supporting this organized campaign of mass-murder highlights Washington’s hypocrisy when it comes to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

“The impending execution of Ali al-Nimr is classic Saudi sectarianism at work. He is the nephew of a noted Shia cleric, and when he was a teenager, participated in political protest. That this ‘crime’ should mean his head is chopped off in the middle of the street and his body crucified for the public to witness defies the human conscience. If this is not evil at work, that word has lost all meaning.”