Read The Powerful Saudi Terrorism Article Censored By Al-Jazeera
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
On December 3rd, a month before Saudi Arabia carried out it largest mass execution since 1980 — subsequently setting the region on fire — Arjun Sethi wrote an article for Al-Jazeera titled: Saudi Arabia Uses Terrorism As An Excuse for Human Rights Abuses. According to Cora Currier at the Intercept:
Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar appear to have blocked the article outside of the United States because it is critical of an ally of Qatar.
Naturally, this makes you want to drop everything and read it. So here are some excerpts courtesy of the Intercept:
Reports emerged last week that Saudi Arabia intends to imminently execute more than 50 people on a single day for alleged terrorist crimes.
All the convictions were obtained through unfair trials marred by human and civil rights violations, including in some cases torture, forced confessions and lack of access to counsel. Each defendant was tried before the Specialized Criminal Court, a counterterrorism tribunal controlled by the Ministry of Interior that has few procedural safeguards and is often used to persecute political dissidents. Lawyers are generally prohibited from counseling their clients during interrogation and have limited participatory rights at trial. Prosecutors aren’t even required to disclose the charges and relevant evidence to defendants.
The problems aren’t just procedural. Saudi law criminalizes dissent and the expression of fundamental civil rights. Under an anti-terrorism law passed in 2014, for example, individuals may be executed for vague acts such as participating in or inciting protests, “contact or correspondence with any groups … or individuals hostile to the kingdom” or “calling for atheist thought.”
One of the defendants, Ali al-Nimr, was convicted of crimes such as “breaking allegiance with the ruler” and “going out to a number of marches, demonstrations and gathering against the state and repeating some chants against the state.” For these offenses, he has been sentenced to beheading and crucifixion, with his beheaded body to be put on public display as a warning to others.
Because of these procedural and legal abominations, the planned executions for these Shia activists must not proceed. They should be retried in public proceedings and afforded due process protections consistent with international law, which includes a ban on the death penalty for anyone under the age of 18.
This deafening silence is not lost on Saudi Arabia and has emboldened its impunity. In the wake of the Arab uprisings, the kingdom’s brutal campaign against its Shia minority and political opposition has deepened. Shias have limited access to government employment and public education, few rights under the criminal justice system and diminished religious rights. Those who protest this discrimination face arbitrary trial and the prospect of execution for terrorism. Consider that Saudi Arabia has not carried out a mass execution for terrorism-related offenses since 1980, a year after an armed group occupied the Grand Mosque of Mecca.
Despite its appalling human rights record, Saudi Arabia was awarded a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council last year and this summer was selected to oversee an influential committee within the council that appoints officials to report on country-specific and thematic human rights challenges. Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia has used its newfound power to thwart an international inquiry into allegations that it committed war crimes in Yemen.
So that’s a great example of how Saudi Arabia blocks the truth within the region. Now let’s look at how it mobilizes its U.S. mercenaries to spew propaganda across mainstream media. From the Intercept:
Saudi Arabia’s well-funded public relations apparatus moved quickly after Saturday’s explosive execution of Shiite political dissident Nimr Al-Nimr to shape how the news is covered in the United States.
The Saudi side of the story is getting a particularly effective boost in the American media through pundits who are quoted justifying the execution, in many cases without a mention of their funding or close affiliation with the Saudi Arabian government.
A Politico article about the rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran by Nahal Toosi, for instance, quoted only three sources: the State Department, which provided a muted response to the executions; the Saudi government; and Fahad Nazer, identified as a “political analyst with JTG Inc.” Nazer defended the executions, saying that they served as a “message … aimed at Saudi Arabia’s own militants regardless of their sect.”
What Politico did not reveal was that Nazer is himself a former political analyst at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a think tank formed last year that discloses that it is fully funded by the Saudi Embassy and the United Arab Emirates.
The Washington Post quoted consultant Theodore Karasik of Gulf State Analytics as saying that the executions were a “powerful message that Saudi Arabia is intent on standing up to its regional rival.” Karasik is a columnist at Al Arabiya, an English-language news organization based in the UAE and owned by Middle East Broadcasting Center, a private news conglomerate that has long been financially backed by members of the Saudi royal family. Its current chairman is Sheikh Waleed bin Ibrahim, a billionaire Saudi businessman whose brother in law was the late King Fahd. (Al Arabiya‘s coverage of the crisis is almost comically pro-Saudi, featuring headlines like “Storming embassies.. Iranian speciality.”)
The U.S. government is obviously not eager to alienate a government that President Obama has wooed with warm words and over $90 billion in arms sales. The diplomatic offensive by Saudi-financed flacks and media has provided some space for it to provide a muted response to the execution.
Yes, you read that right. $90 billion. Make sense considering Saudi Arabia is now the world’s biggest arms importer.
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Isn't that what everyone does these days to justify invasions and freedom grabs?
Until they meet another conventional/nuclear superpower equivalent that has been sitting back and watching them self-destruct going on 15 years that say "times up" we've seen what you can do with little boys... Now lets see how you do when they come a little bigger!...
Wouldn't want to be the lone Wahhabist and Zionist Kike bitch in the "neighborhood" right about now!....
Would you?!!!
This week so far:
Putin is in deep trouble and knows it. The US has a far stronger position. Putin knows that too. And he knows the US will get relatively stronger, from here. His best bet is to reduce tension, and try for a "can't we all just get along" approach, before the next angry President Boofhead comes along in 12 months, and rearranges everyone's little agenda.
You may not like it, you may want to whine and mince like a screaming three year old, throwing increasingly ineffective and tedious bratt-like tantrums, but who even cares what you would like, or dislike, muppet? In WWII the US military totally flattened cities in Germany and obliterated most of Japan. And nothing happened to them, no military justice court gave a shit.
What is happening today is nothing compared to then. And you want to pretend whining about it like a child will change anything? You silly little idiot.
Try to adjust and come to terms with it and grow the hell up. You have the mind of a pubescent teenager, and all the wisdom and insight of one as well. This world won't be adjusting to you, you will adjust.
Or you will be plowed in. The latter would be more useful, little bait ball.
And you ain't gonna be missed by life. That's all the mercy and compassion for your plight that you'll ever get from providence, kiddo.
It's a beautiful thing! Can you see the deep loveliness of it? Something you can't control will sweep you off, like shit on life's cosmic bum hole, and all will be right with the world. Things are looking up!
Now there's some grandeur for you! :D
Element
You're a fucking frustrated ex-DoD/DOS Langley piece of shit with a "pension" that's living off the pipe dream that anything your government shits in your face is "golden"!
Keep watchin the train wreck dick head!
Our 1990 Berlin Wall Moment came and went 7 years ago... Now we have the "hang over"!!!
If you still have your "dog tags" enlist again. My understanding is they've waived the age requirements from 51 to 64 and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we don't get another "9/11" rally point moment complete with a Draft courtesy of Charlie Rangle-"me up the ass is in our future"!!!
Will be interesting to see how the "sheep" react when they re-invoke the lottery!!!
I wish!!! I prefer your projections of my world! heh!
Someone plug a pacifier into that child's whine hole! We're tryin' to sleep here! haha :D
You're both going to die. Sleep tight tonight my little angel's. No whining allowed.
+100
You're right Ness.!
Don't want you to feel left out, you're invited too, maggot's gotta eat! ;-)
Detritus - dead organic material :)
#wormslivesmatter
Here's another omen from your "partner in crime" dick head that sold you out through Jonathan Pollard's pardon along with Obama licking the nut sack of Putin... Last I checked members of BiBi's party started calling his sphincter the "Bismark" like the cream filled Russian donut that it is!!!
Tell me when our Navy and Air Force are ready to take on those S400s that India seems ready to bend over at the waist for to pay $9 billion for "chafin at hte bit"?... Dazzle me motherfucker with how good "we are"!!! Cause all I smell is cunt from those American pilots that have been bombing without mercy before September 30, 2015 in Syria!!!!
Can't wait for your rebuttle fucktrard!!!
Topple the Saudi Caliphate regime before becoming nuclear. Iran has not given up the ambition and once nuclear, a Wahhabi bomb will emerge immediately.
Is this an article about the Nurnburg trials ?
Al Jazeera.......and you actually have American companies buying advertising time with them......LMAO!......
Maybe I can make a few million selling black bandanas, scimatar swords, and explosive vest dolls on Al Jazeera......
Well, wasn't it only a few years back that Murdoch bought the English/Western division of this outfit? So, it isn't too surprising if they are serving our interests like all the state media around the planet serves its masters.
Saudi Arabia was awarded a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council
Shamelessness of cabalA$$LickerLiarAddictObamma
A SEAT ???....shit--Saudi Arabia is the HEAD of the UN Human Rights Council...
almost as bad as McCain as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee
Human Rights
What are the rights of an embryo/fetus/infant/baby? They are all human.
Does it not have the right to certain minimum standards before, during and after birth? For example, does an embryo/fetus have the right to be gestated within a mother that does not drink alcohol, or use heroin?
Well, no, according to Wikipedia, “Reproductive rights were first established as a subset of human rights at the United Nations 1968 International Conference on Human Rights.”
“Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children…”
lol, looks like Saudi on Wallstreet's list for next Regime Change, you read it here first. Too obvious Tyler babe.