Harriet McCulloch, Reprieve’s deputy director, noted that as global attention focuses on crises elsewhere in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is intensifying its use of the death penalty. McCulloch stated that, “As the world’s attention fixates on horror elsewhere in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is clearing death row with a bloodbath.”  As reported the Middle East Eye.

The rapid increase in executions reflects a troubling trend

As per the Middle East Eye report, McCulloch states that the Kingdom smashed its own grim record for most people executed in a year in the first nine months of 2024. She added that “With 213 executions and counting, death row prisoners are at greater risk than ever before, their families desperately awaiting news of their fate in the news.”

Link:

Saudi Arabia is in the midst of an execution crisis.

At least 213 people have been executed in 2024 so far.

This makes 2024 a record-breaking execution year for the Kingdom.

4/5

— Reprieve (@Reprieve) October 9, 2024

The rise in executions is occurring under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has held the titles of Prime Minister and de facto leader of the kingdom. Despite his 2018 vow to reduce capital punishment, the kingdom remains one of the most prolific executioners globally. Since Mohammed bin Salman assumed power on June 21, 2017, at least 1,115 executions have been documented.

A joint report released in 2023 by the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Reprieve found that the execution rate in Saudi Arabia has nearly doubled since King Salman and his son took the reins in 2015. Between 2015 and 2022, the number of executions surged by 82%.

Reprieve has also accused Saudi Arabia of misleading the UN about its use of the death penalty. During a recent meeting with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Saudi officials claimed that the death penalty is only applied in the most serious cases and that laws protect minors from capital punishment. This statement contradicts the kingdom’s history of executing individuals for crimes allegedly committed as minors.

For example, three clients of Reprieve and ESOHR—Abdullah al-Derazi, Youssef al-Manasif, and Abdullah al-Howaiti—were convicted based on confessions obtained under torture for crimes committed before they turned 18. The Saudi Human Rights Commission also inaccurately reported that Mustafa al-Darwish, sentenced to death for protest-related offenses, was over 19 at the time of his alleged crimes. However, evidence provided by Reprieve and ESOHR proved he was under 18. Darwish was executed on June 15, 2021, despite the evidence.

Saudi Arabia fails to win seat at top UN Human Rights Body

On October 9, 2024, Saudi Arabia has failed to win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) after a vote for membership in the 2025-27 term. This is the second time in a row for the Persian Gulf kingdom to lose the elections.

According to the Middle East Eye, HRC voted on October 9, 2024 to elect 18 new members from 19 candidates running on five separate regional slates. The Asia-Pacific slate had six candidates competing for five seats. Saudi Arabia came in sixth with 117 votes, behind the Marshall Islands (124), the Republic of Korea (161), Cyprus (167), Qatar (167) and Thailand (177).

In Wednesday’s election, it received 117 votes, the least among six Asia-Pacific countries competing for five seats on a regional slate.  Saudi Arabia was one of 19 candidates who were in the race of membership for HRC body. McCulloch was also urged UN member states to reject Saudi Arabia’s bid, stating, “Today, UN member states should vote no—no to Saudi Arabia securing a seat on the council, and no to rising executions carried out with impunity.”

However, earlier Human rights activists strongly urged that Saudi Arabia’s push for a seat on the HRC contradicts the council’s mission. Members are expected to uphold high standards of human rights and fully cooperate with the council. UN Watch, a group that monitors the UN’s adherence to its own principles, has called for changes to the HRC’s election process, which currently allows countries with poor human rights records to become members.

Rights groups have welcomed the news, stating that it underscores Riyadh’s failure to make meaningful progress in improving its human rights record.

Crackdown on Dissent and Notable Cases

Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty extends beyond ordinary crimes to encompass political repression. In 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested around 70 members of the political elite, including members of the royal family, as part of his strategy to consolidate power. High-profile incidents, such as the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, have sparked worldwide outrage. While Prince Mohammed has denied any personal involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, a U.S. investigation has implicated him in the assassination.

Related:

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Saudi Arabia: A Dark Stain on Islam

How Saudi Wahhabism spread hatred of non-Muslims in Egypt

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One witnesses a forceful return of religions’ political hold, which corners our diasporas into a mix of ethnic-cultural-religious syncretic identity, and traps us, as if we were under ‘house arrest’, into our presumed religion or culture. In fact, this is an ahistorical fantasy, which denies us any access to freedom of thought and universal rights.

In these dire circumstances, we welcome the translation into French, the publication and the wide distribution of Bhagat Singh’s 1930 pamphlet “Why I am an atheist” as particularly timely.

As feminists, we already faced the identity sledgehammer argument in our countries of origin: “Feminism is Western; you are traitors to your own country, to your culture, to your origins; you have sold out to the West, to capitalism, to Western imperialism” etc…

However, a research undertaken by feminist activists in the ’90s in so-called Muslim countries shows that women, since the inception of Islam, already demanded the right to education, to freedom of movement, to political representation, to financial autonomy, to celibacy or to the right to chose one’s partner after thorough agreements had been designed in order to draft a contract which was satisfactory to both parties, etc…

From that time onwards, women took action to guarantee all these rights (1) We had to fight hard to get back the ownership of our long lived feminist history, by challenging the Sirens’ song of reactionary identity politics – and as well, one must emphasise here, the Sirens’ song of patriarchy happily covering up in the midst of our Left forces, in our countries.

As revolutionaries as well, we had to confront the identity argument: “Marxism is a Western way of thinking, alien to our culture; you are traitors to the nation; sold out to the West, etc…”

And now once more, we must reclaim and own back our revolutionary history, by bringing together the stories and analysis of the many agnostics, atheists and secularists in our countries. For, as Bhagat Singh says, “All religions, faiths, theological philosophies, and religious creeds and all other such institutions in the long run become supporters of the tyrannical and exploiting institutions, men and classes. Rebellion against any king has always been a sin in every religion. “

In order to reclaim our historical right to atheism, to ground ourselves into our long secular tradition, we must today confront on the ground the Hindutva as well as Daesh (ISIS) and many other – intolerant Buddhists, orthodox Jews, Opus Dei, etc… religious extreme-rights, which, when they are in power, claim their gods granted them the right and duty to physically eliminate all the Untermensch. “Divine Repression”, as Bhagat Singh would say… Be it in India, in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, in Algeria, in Nigeria, or … in Paris and Brussels, many lost their lives, including recently, for having claimed this universal right: to live as a freethinker and to mock the official representatives of established creeds.

Let us pay tribute here to the Bangladeshi and Saudi bloggers, to the Indian writers, to the Pakistani activists struggling against the Blasphemy Law, to the French cartoonists, etc … who fought for our freedom.

Clearly, it is an illusion to hope that the West will be spared by the rise of religious extreme-rights and that their sphere of influence will be limited to the African and Asian countries we came from. In Europe and North America, societies are increasingly dividing themselves along the lines of ethnic or religious antagonistic ‘communities’ which want to be ruled by their own religious laws (“Do not say that it is His law!”, exclaims Bhagat Singh) and their own customs. In the process, they get rid of democracy and universal rights, in the name of an ‘identity’ which only keeps from the past the most conservatives elements – especially regarding women’s rights.

Even in France, the very principle of secularism is now under threat – whether because it is gradually abandoned by political forces, formerly on the Left, who made secularism happen, or whether it is sidetracked by political forces, on the extreme-right.

In these troubled times, translating and publishing in the French language this book by Bhagat Singh reminds all those who, right here, deny us our libertarian history – in the name of an identity they believe is necessarily grounded in religion – and who grant a growing political power to religions’ official representatives, that “The morbid alliance between religious preachers and possessors of power” constitutes a mortal danger.

The writer is Algerian sociologist, founder and former international coordinator of the Women Living Under Muslim Laws international solidarity network (wluml.org), founder and present international coordinator of the international network, Secularism Is A Women’s Issue (siawi.org).

This article was published in French by Editions de l’Asymétrie, as a forward to Bhagat Singh’s “Why I am an atheist”. The author has translated it into English.

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This year Saudi Arabia has allowed Christians living in its territory to celebrate Christmas openly. Untill now, Christians were allowed to celebrate Christmas in expat enclaves only. But thanks to Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s Vision 2030 programme, the Saudi government has allowed Christians to celebrate the festival freely. Malls and shops for the first time were seen selling cakes, Christmas Trees, tinsel, baubles and other gift items.

But with this, the Islamists that stick to conservative and narrow-minded interpretations of Sharia have intensified their campaign against the custom of wishing Merry Christmas to Christians.

In 2012, the Taliban had issued a fatwa declaring that congratulating Christians on Christmas was haram (impermissible). Though modern Islamic scholars like Al Qaradhawi’s view is that there is nothing wrong in wishing Merry Christmas to Christians.

But recently, an official of Hamas Ahmad Kulab in an interview to a TV channel echoed the Talibanic view that saying Merry Christmas was forbidden by Sharia. He went on to say that even if they congratulate Muslims, Muslims should not say anything and remain silent.

But a writer and scholar of Saudi Arabia, Tawfiq al Sayf, in his article published in Al Sharq al Awsat (London) on the issue has condemned this attitude of Muslim scholars and jurisprudents. He says in his article that joining in and sharing the joys and sorrows of others is a natural instinct of human beings and this does not require any religious fatwa or ruling. He says someone invented this theory and we repeated it every year. He writes:

“Wishing Christians a merry Christmas or wishing people a Happy New Year is not a matter of religious law and has no connection with any religious ruling which permits (or forbids) it —- for it is not a matter that requires the ruling of a jurisprudent. Even if a jurisprudent was asked about this matter and gave a reply, his reply does not count as a fatwa but rather as a general opinion which had no validity as an obligation or prohibition.”

He also thinks that this act of advising Muslims not to join the celebrations of others is due to the fear that others may corrupt the faith or culture of Muslims. He writes:

“I have a feeling that the tendency to condemn participation in other people’s happy or sad occasion is a part of a broader trend stemming from the inclination to isolate ourselves for fear of being influenced by the (non-Muslim) majority in the world.”

In fact, Tawfiq al Sayf has tried to address and refute the propaganda being spread by the likes of Ahmad Kulab of Hamas who believes that allowing Christmas to be celebrated in Muslim countries will have a bad influence on our children and that wishing Christians on Christmas is an act of Kufr.

It is said that Ibn Taymiyyah had the view that Muslims should not wish Christians on Christmas. And his view was widely circulated by extremist ulema as an interpretation of Quran and Sunnah.

Christmas is a festival and Muslims should share the joys of the People of the Book on this occasion. The Quran enjoins on Muslims to share the joys and sorrow of their close and distant neighbours. One who does not do so cannot be a Muslim.

This article was first published in https://www.newageislam.com/

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A plea has been filed in the apex court for issuing directions that around 250 pregnant and nurses and doctors be repatriated to India. The petition, filed under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution, states that the mothers and their fetuses are vulnerable as most women are in the final months of their pregnancy.

The petition states that these women had planned to travel back to India in the months of march and April but due to the lockdown and the suspension of flights by India, they were unable to do so and now they are stuck there under unfavourable conditions. The plea further highlights the vulnerability of these nurses and doctors, especially in this crucial time, wherein “the petitioners are living alone in Saudi Arabia with no family to take care of them”. The petition also puts forth how they do not have access to proper medical facilities there.

The petition states that their difficulties have amplified due to government hospitals in Saudi Arabia being converted into Covid-19 treatment centres thus leaving the only alternative of private hospitals which they are unable to afford.

The petitioners state that it is the government’s duty to protect the life of the unborn child from arbitrary and unjust destruction and sought the government’s immediate intervention, as it had done in previous instances when they airlifted some people from Kuwait and United Kingdom recently.

Additionally, the petitioners have also sought directions to the Embassy of Riyadh to ensure that they get access to proper medical facilities until repatriation.

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Gujarat Covid-19 cases cross 3.5k, local scientists blame L-type strain for the rise

The post Plea in SC seeking repatriation of 250 pregnant nurses and doctors from Saudi appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Residents reported that seven separate airstrikes slammed into a former university building in the southwestern city of Dhamar which had been converted into a detention center by the Houthis, obliterating the structure and killing or wounding every single detainee. Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) rushed to the scene of complete devastation to search for possible survivors and comb through the rubble for the bodies of victims.

While the Saudi-led coalition justified the horrific attack by claiming the site had been used by the Houthis to store drones and missiles, the ICRC confirmed that the attack had in fact destroyed a prison where its representatives had previously visited detainees.

“It’s a college building that has been empty and has been used as a detention facility for a while. What is most disturbing is that [the attack was] on a prison. To hit such a building is shocking and saddening—prisoners are protected by international law,” Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the ICRC’s delegation in Yemen told the Guardian .

The Saudi monarchy, given the green light by Obama in March 2015 and now with the unyielding support of Trump, has been waging a bloody assault on Yemen in an effort to return its puppet President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi back to power after he was forced to flee the country in the face of an advance by the Houthis. The US claims the Houthi rebels are backed by Iran and that the war is a critical component of its efforts to counter Tehran’s influence in the region. Despite repeated assertions, the Trump administration has yet to provide any evidence to back up its allegations.

Trump reaffirmed Washington’s support for the Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen in April when he vetoed a congressional resolution which would have required the Pentagon to end direct military support. Without enough votes to overcome the president’s veto, the bill was seen as an opportunity by a number of current Democratic presidential candidates to make a phony show of sympathy for the broad antiwar sentiments in the US population.

Saudi jets, armed with US and UK bombs and provided with targeting information by US military intelligence officers stationed in Saudi Arabia, have continued to carry out repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, mosques, funerals and markets. The US had provided coalition jets with mid-air refueling until the end of last year, ensuring maximum carnage.

An analysis of casualty and death toll data published earlier this year by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) found that the total number of people killed in direct political violence in Yemen is approaching 100,000, including 12,000 civilians, between January 2015 and June of this year. ACLED found the Saudi coalition responsible for 68 percent of all civilian casualties recorded.

These figures do not include those civilians, including children, who have died of cholera and malnourishment as a result of a naval blockade enforced by the Saudi-led coalition and the US Navy and airstrikes on critical infrastructure, including water, sanitation and electrical systems. Some 8 million Yemenis are currently living on the brink of starvation.

The global charity Save the Children estimated at the end of last year that as many as 85,000 children under the age of five had died from starvation since the Saudi assault began. And the worst cholera outbreak on record has infected more than 1.2 million people, claiming the lives of more than 2,500.

The Saudi-led coalition has hindered efforts to treat the wounded and sick by repeatedly bombing hospitals, including an attack on a Doctors Without Borders cholera treatment facility in northwestern Yemen in June 2018.

Despite spending billions of dollars, dropping tens of thousands of bombs and thereby creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, Saudi Arabia and the US appear no closer to the goal of dominating Yemen today than they did in March 2015 when the onslaught began.

An apparent split has emerged between Saudi Arabia and its main coalition partner, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in recent months, with Abu Dhabi announcing the pullout of its ground forces from Yemen in July and subsequently turning equipment and positions over to the tens of thousands of militia members whom it has funded and trained.

As a result, a new front has opened up in the war, with Yemeni army forces loyal to Hadi supported by Saudi Arabia fighting the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) and allied Security Belt Forces militia backed by the UAE for control over the southern port city of Aden.
On Thursday, airstrikes by UAE fighter jets killed 45 soldiers and wounded dozens of others in an assault which targeted forces loyal to Hadi in Aden and neighboring Abyan province. Dozens of Hadi loyalists have been arrested by the southern separatists on charges of “terrorism.”

With the backing of the UAE, the STC is seeking the re-establishment of the independent state of South Yemen, known officially as the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, which existed from 1967 to 1990 with the backing of the Soviet Union. The dissolution of the USSR led to the creation of unified Yemen followed by a failed southern secessionist movement in 1994 which was suppressed by the north.

Meanwhile the Trump administration has continued to carry out the drone war in Yemen which was initiated by Obama under the guise of the so-called “War on Terror.” So far this year there have been nine drone strikes, with at least 10 people killed. While there have been no reported use of US drone strikes in support of the Saudi-led war, an armed US military MQ-9 Reaper drone was shot down over Dhamar by Houthi forces in late August.

Originally published in WSWS.org
 

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A 54-year old former justice minister, Mr. Al-Issa, one of a younger generation of Islamic scholars willing to do Prince Mohammed’s bidding, has been doing the rounds internationally and making all the right moves to project the de facto Saudi leader as the spearhead of efforts to counter ultra-conservatism at home, fight political and militant Islam across the globe and promote the crown prince as a tolerant leader bent on fostering inter-faith dialogue.

Mr. Al-Issa’s moves also serve to strengthen ties with US President Donald J. Trump’s Evangelist voter base and shape an environment that legitimizes Saudi Arabia’s close cooperation with Israel.

In his latest move, Mr. Al-Issa is this week convening a four day international conference on moderate Islam as head of the Muslim World League, once a prime vehicle for the kingdom’s global promotion of anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian ultra-conservative strands of Islam, and a member of the Supreme Council of Ulema, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority.

Breaking with past Saudi religious and political tradition, Mr. Al-Issa has reached out to Jewish and Evangelist communities. He called during a speech in October at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, widely viewed as pro-Israeli, for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem to promote the cause of peace despite the fact that Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have formal diplomatic relations.

Mr. Al-Issa has defended Prince Mohammed’s reforms such as the curbing of the powers of the kingdom’s religious police, the lifting of the ban on women’s driving and the nurturing of modern-day entertainment such as cinemas and concerts.

He has rejected the use of violence, including against Israel, acknowledged the Holocaust, denounced the efforts of Holocaust deniers, and announced that he would next January become the most senior Islamic cleric to visit Auschwitz on the 75^th anniversary of its liberation.

Mr. Al-Issa laid out his approach in an interview with Le Monde two years ago. “All religious institutions must modernize their speech, to make it compatible with the times,” he said.

No doubt, Mr. Al-Issa’s moves help reshape an environment in which religious intolerance and prejudice was the norm and still is widespread. Yet, critics charge that his efforts to project Prince Mohammed as a religious reformer do not go beyond speech and symbolism and constitute a public relations effort rather than true change.

It, moreover, remains unclear, how effective Mr. Al-Issa’s efforts are. They certainly help the Trump administration defend its unconditional support for Prince Mohammed, including its willingness to shield the kingdom from accountability for its conduct of the war in Yemen and the killing last October of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the premises of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Saudi Arabia insists Mr. Khashoggi was murdered by rogue operatives.

Yet, some of Mr. Al-Issa’s well-connected interlocutors during his visit to Washington said they came away from discussions with him not sure what to think. Likewise, a Saudi intellectual rhetorically asked Saudi Arabia scholar Stephane Lacroix during an interview: “How can one take Mohammed al Issa’s statements seriously when religious bookstores in Riyadh are full of books advocating the exact opposite?”

Malaysia, one of the kingdom’s associates in countering extremism has taken a similarly critical view of the its efforts. Malaysian defense minister Mohamad Sabu last year closed the Saudi-backed King Salman Centre for International Peace (KSCIP) in Kuala Lumpur following criticism that the kingdom with its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam may not be the right partner.

In a recent article discussing the limits of Prince Mohammed’s reforms, Mr. Lacroix, pointing to the arrests of Islamic thinkers critical of the kingdom’s ultra-conservative Wahhabi traditions and the suppression of all debate, concluded that “this makes MBS’s religious reforms look more like a public relations stunt than a genuine transformation.” Mr. Lacroix was referring to Prince Mohammed by his initials.

Mr. Lacroix’s conclusion is enhanced by the fact that there is little that would suggest fundamental reform of religion involving tolerance at a practical rather than a talking heads level beyond the countering of extremism at home and abroad, a key Saudi interest, and the social changes Prince Mohammed has so far introduced to polish the kingdom’s tarnished image and further his plan to diversify its oil-dependent economy and create badly needed jobs.

If anything, Prince Mohammed’s reforms appear to be designed to shave off Wahhabism’s rough edges, project a more moderate image, and promote at home and abroad in countries like Kazakhstan, Algeria and Libya an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam that preaches absolute obedience to the ruler. Prince Mohammed’s crackdown on all forms of dissent enforces the principle.

By the same token, Prince Mohammed has done little to push reform since lifting the ban on women’s driving and enhancing their professional and sporting opportunities. The kingdom’s male guardianship of women has been softened at the edges but remains firmly in place.

Scores of young Saudi women have recently employed devious tactics to escape family abuse and leave the kingdom to seek asylum elsewhere. Saudi Arabia, rather than cracking down on domestic abuse and abolishing the guardianship system, has sought to prevent women from fleeing and force the return of those who made it abroad.

By the same token, the kingdom has yet to take steps that would put flesh at home on the skeleton of its notion of religious tolerance.

Christians, Jews, Buddhist and Hindus continue to be banned from building houses of worship despite the fact that archaeologists have found evidence of the existence in the time of the Prophet Mohammed of a 7^th century synod near Jubail and the fact that older residents along the Saudi border with Yemen vividly recall interacting with a Jewish community.

After brutally cracking down on rebellious Shiites in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, Prince Mohammed has moved quickly to rebuild the levelled town of Awamiyah. Shiites, nonetheless, accounted for the majority of the 37 people beheaded in April in a mass execution.

Mr. Al-Issa’s Supreme Council of Ulema has no Shiite clerics among its members nor do Shiite judges sit on the benches of national courts or serve in the police force or as ambassadors.

The risk for Prince Mohammed is that religious moderation like economic reform that trickles down could become an issue on which his ability to deliver will be a litmus test of his reforms.

A recent poll of Arab, including Saudi youth, showed that two thirds of those surveyed felt that religion played too large a role while 79 percent argued that religious institutions needed to be reformed. Half said that religious values were holding the Arab world back.
Said Mr. Lacroix: “If religious reform is only a push from above and not the result of genuine social debate, it is easily reversible.”

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture.

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts and Tumblr

Courtesy: Counter Current

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Since the beginning of the war, the U.S. has backed the coalition bombing campaign with weapons sales and, until recently, midair refueling support for aircraft. But the French report suggests that U.S. drones may also be helping with Saudi munitions targeting.

“If the RSAF benefits from American support, in the form of advice in the field of targeting, the practice of Close Air Support (CAS) is recent and appears poorly understood by these crews,” the document says. A footnote after the word “targeting” specifies that the possible U.S. “advice” refers to “targeting effectuated by American drones.”

Though the U.S. has denied engaging directly in hostilities against the Houthis, American MQ-9 Reaper drones – a reconnaissance drone with hunt-and-kill capabilities – have flown over Houthi occupied territory. After the Houthis shot down one of the drones in October 2017, it led to speculation that the U.S. could be using them to collect intelligence for the Saudis. Targeting being effectuated by American drones could mean that U.S. drones play a more active role in coalition targeting, like laser-sighting precision-guided munitions drops, for example.

U.S. Central Command strongly denied that U.S. drones have any operational role in coalition targeting. “The U.S. military does not provide that type of support to the Saudi-led coalition,” a CENTCOM spokesperson told The Intercept by email. “Our role with the Saudi-led coalition is advisory only. We provide intelligence and advise the coalition on best practices, air-to-ground space awareness, and the law of armed conflict.”
 

French-made Leclerc tanks of the Saudi-led coalition are deployed on the outskirts of the Yemeni port city of Aden on Aug. 3, 2015, during a military operation against Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies.
Photo: Saleh Al-Obeidi/AFP/Getty Images

Dated September 25, 2018, the report was written to brief an October meeting of the French “restricted council,” a meeting of cabinet-level officials that included French President Emmanuel Macron, Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly, and Minister of European and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian. Its publication is likely to have significant political implications for the Macron government, which has steadfastly defended arms sales to Saudi Arabia, while simultaneously downplaying its own knowledge of how French weapons are used in Yemen.In January, Parly told a host on France Inter, a major French public radio station, that she had “no knowledge as to whether [French] weapons are being used directly in this conflict,” and that “we have recently sold no weapons that could be used in the course of the Yemen conflict.” She has also told journalists that French weapons “have not been used against civilians,” and described the country’s weapons exports as “relatively modest,” adding that “we don’t sell weapons like they’re baguettes.”

But the report shows that the Saudis and Emiratis have made much wider use French military hardware than the French government has admitted. Since the war began in 2015, the coalition has used French tanks and armored vehicles to reinforce the Saudi border and defend Emirati military outposts in Yemen. The Saudis have stationed French long-range artillery guns along its border, capable of firing deep into Yemen’s northern governorates, while the Emiratis have piloted French multiengine fighter planes, equipped with French laser-targeting technology. And both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have used French warships to enforce the coalition blockade against the country.

Though the report lists the French arms used by Saudi Arabia and the and UAE, it consistently notes that French intelligence has not observed the same weapons on “active fronts” with coalition ground forces, which are largely made up of Yemeni fighters loyal to former President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, as well as foreign mercenaries. One map notes the presence of French Leclerc tanks at a coalition base near the battle of Hodeidah, but the report also says that the UAE uses Leclerc tanks generally for defensive purposes.

In response to a detailed list of questions sent by Disclose, the French prime minister’s office sent a lengthy statement about France’s arms sales and its alliance with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The statement says that French arms sales are thoroughly reviewed and consistent with French and international law.

“France is a responsible and reliable partner,” the statement reads. “Offensive actions are regularly taken from Yemen against the territory of our regional partners – we have seen this with ballistic missile attacks or drones carrying explosives, for example. France maintains a constant dialogue with these partners to respond to their defense needs.”

It continues: “Moreover, to our knowledge, the French weapons available to the members of the coalition are mostly placed in a defensive position, outside Yemeni territory or on coalition holdings, but not on the front line, and we are not aware of civilian casualties resulting from their use in Yemeni theater.”

At no point does the report assess whether French arms have been used against civilians. One map, however, estimates that more than 430,000 Yemeni people live within range of French artillery guns on the Saudi-Yemen border.

The report is primarily concerned with the location of French weapons among coalition forces and says nothing about origin of Houthi weapons, some of which are known to have come from Iran. An appendix catalogues the major weapon systems used by the Saudis and Emiratis, but is not a complete list; it does not mention munitions, rifles, or several types of armored vehicles spotted by monitoring groups.

Overall, the appendix reinforces a point that observers of the war have made since the intervention began: that the military capability of the coalition has been created and sustained almost entirely by the global arms trade. In addition to the U.S., the U.K., and France, the report mentions radar and detection systems from Sweden; Austrian Camcopter drones; defensive naval rockets from South Korea, Italian warships, and even rocket launcher batteries from Brazil.
 

Y
Yemeni fighters aligned with the Saudi-led coalition-backed government man a frontline position at Kilo 16, an area which contains the main supply route linking Hodeidah city to the rebel-held capital Sanaa, on Sept. 21, 2018.
Photo: Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images

The report describes the Saudi-led air war in Yemen as “a campaign of massive and continuous airstrikes against territories held by the Houthi rebellion.” The coalition carried out a total of 24,000 airstrikes from the beginning of the war through September 2018, according to the report — a number that falls within the range estimated by the Yemen Data Project, an independent monitoring group.French intelligence has observed five types of piloted fighters flying over Yemen, all of which are NATO aircraft. The only non-NATO aircraft mentioned in the report is the Wing Loong, a Reaper drone knockoff produced by the Chinese. Export controls have prevented the U.S. from selling armed drones to the UAE, so Abu Dhabi turned to China to acquire them. Last year, the UAE used a Chinese drone to kill Saleh al-Samad, president of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, who was widely viewed as an advocate for engaging in the U.N.-led peace process.

Despite their vast technological superiority, the Saudis in particular are failing to meet their military objectives, the report says, identifying Saudi targeting as in need of improvement. And it describes the Saudis as less effective participants in air and sea missions, noting that the Emiratis are largely responsible for the blockade. It speaks more favorably of Emirati pilots, saying that they have a “proven” ability to use guided munitions, and that they perform up to NATO standards during bombing missions.

The report opens with a discussion of the battle to retake Hodeidah, a port city on the Red Sea and the entry point for most commercial goods and humanitarian aid into Yemen. The UAE predicted a decisive victory in Hodeidah, where fighting began last summer. But the intelligence report assessed that the “taking by force of [Hodeidah] appears still out of reach” for UAE-backed militias, despite their having nearly twice as many forces on the ground as their adversaries at the time it was written. However, the report notes them slowly moving to encircle and besiege the city by trying to retake critical junctions on the road between Hodeidah and Sana’a, the capital, which the Houthis control.

Before the offensive began, humanitarian groups identified a protracted siege as a worst-case scenario because it could largely stop the flow of aid to some of the regions of the country most in need.

“Commercial and humanitarian shipments coming through Hodeidah port are a lifeline, not just for people in Hodeidah city, but for much of Yemen,” said Scott Paul, a humanitarian policy lead at Oxfam America. “Setting up a long-term front-line and siege on the perimeter of the city would have a dramatic impact on national commodities markets and endanger anyone struggling to pay for basic necessities like food, fuel, and medicine.”

Despite calls from aid groups, the U.S. did not pressure the Emiratis to back off the attack. One U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal that U.S. policy was to display a “blinking yellow light of caution,” and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement asking parties to respect the “free flow of humanitarian aid” but stopping short of calling on coalition forces to back off.
 

Humedan Hussin Abdullah, left, sits with his father at a government hospital on Sept. 23, 2018 in Aden, Yemen. Abdullah is waiting to have shrapnel removed from his leg, an injury he sustained in an attack in Hodeidah province that killed two of his family members.
Photo: Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images

Hodeidah saw some of the worst fighting of 2018, and the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated a total of 2,325 civilian casualties as a result. Aid groups also sounded the alarm about thousands of civilians who were trapped because of the fighting. An internationally brokered ceasefire in December slowed the pace of coalition airstrikes, but the ceasefire broke down in January and violence resumed.The French intelligence report also describes a massive operation by the Saudis to secure their border with Yemen, and says that five brigades of the Saudi army and two brigades of the Saudi National Guard — about 25,000 men — are deployed along the border. The troops are reinforced by 300 tanks and a battalion of 48 French-made Caesar self-propelled Howitzer guns capable of firing dozens of miles into Yemeni territory.

The “unspoken goal” of this border operation is to penetrate Houthi-controlled areas and eventually advance on Houthi strongholds in the Yemeni governorate of Saada, the report says. But it says the Saudis’ lack of mobility leaves them highly vulnerable to guerrilla attacks and that their strikes are too imprecise be effective against the nimbler Houthi forces.

“Despite the defensive means deployed, the rebels maintain their nuisance capability: artillery salvos, missile shots, improvised explosive devices, ambushes and infiltrations into Saudi territory,” the report says. “The addition of infantry combat vehicles in empty spaces between the tanks, in the summer of 2016, did not allow for an improvement in the efficiency of Saudi tactics.”

Disclose is the first nonprofit newsroom of investigative journalism in France. Its mission is to reveal abuses and hold the powerful to account. Disclose supports strong and independent journalism that is focused on the public interest.

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With billions of petro dollars to fund their global clout, the Saudi lobbies have simply brought off opposition to their continued efforts to spread Wahhabism worldwide.  In failing to confront Wahhabism, North America and Europe remain paralysed by a combination of political correctness and a racism of lower expectations while in Muslim majority countries, the Saudi lobbies have used the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Ikhwan to infiltrate every level of the State.  Together this ensures that the relentless radicalization of millions of urban, upper and middle class Muslim youth is going on at a relentless pace in only Pakistan, India, Middle East, Egypt, Somalia, Indonesia and Malaysia but also in North America and Europe through the concerted efforts of Saudi-funded Islamic TV channels. Examples of such channels include: Dr. Zakir Naik’s Peace TV (English and Urdu), Islam Channel, Iqraa TV and a few others.
 

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A UN report has found that Washington Post columnist and Saudi regime critic Jamal Kashoggi was murdered by Saudi official and Saudi Arabia “seriously curtailed and undermined” Turkey’s ability to investigate the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a UN expert has said.
 
The UN human rights investigator leading the international inquiry into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said evidence showed he was a victim of “a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the state of Saudi Arabia,” Al Jazeera reported.
 
Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard said on Thursday her three-member team had access to part of “chilling and gruesome audio material” of the murder obtained by Turkish intelligence agencies while they visited Turkey between 28 January and 3 February.
 
A preliminary report says it was 13 days before Turkey was allowed into the consulate where the journalist was killed.
 
Khashoggi was last seen alive entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. The 59-year-old was a prominent critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. US intelligence agencies believe Prince Mohammed ordered the assassination.
 
On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Riyadh was trying to contest an element of a CIA assessment that concluded MBS likely ordered the killing. Riyadh denied his involvement, alleging “rogue” Saudi elements acted on their own accord, the Al Jazeera report said.
 
Saudi Deputy Public Prosecutor Shalaan bin Rajih Shalaan said investigators had concluded an intelligence officer ordered Khashoggi’s murder, applying a lethal injection inside the consulate, BBC reported.

The officer had been tasked with persuading the dissident journalist to return to the Gulf kingdom, he added. Khashoggi’s body was dismembered inside the building and the body parts were then handed over to a local “collaborator” outside the grounds, according to Shalaan.
 
Callamard plans to present a final report to the UN Human Rights Council in June.
 

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Rahaf Mohammad al Qunun, a Saudi teenager, has been permitted to stay in Canada after an international outcry supporting her right to live with freedom and dignity. She fled from her Saudi family whom she accuses as being ultra conservative. She was even punished for shortening her hair by confining her to her room for months.

There are reports that her ordeal began when she decided to renounce Islam. And that perhaps is the crux of the problem. Islam has a special problem with apostasy and in the case of Rahaf has brought it into spotlight once again.

 For now, Rahaf is safe and most probably will be granted a safe passage to a country which she chooses to stay.

However, we need to be wary of the long arm of the Saudi state. The state has been known to kidnap its ‘problematic’ citizens residing in other countries and bring them back to Saudi Arabia. Worse still, there have been reports that its hit squads have targeted dissidents even on foreign territory. A large part of this effort is because the Saudi state fails to differentiate between criticism and treason. Anything remotely critical of Islam or even the monarchy automatically becomes treason. As long as this convoluted thinking remains part of the Saudi establishment, Rahaf Mohammed, and many others like her, would never be safe.

The problem of apostasy is common to all the three Semitic religions. Theologically, all three of them decree that the apostate must be put to death. However, we must differentiate between the reasons for apostasy within Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Within Judaism the apostate is punished for reverting to the ‘old ways’. Thus going back to idol worship and turning ones back to one God makes one apostate. Within Christianity, the apostate is killed for turning his back on Christ. The argument is that once you have embraced monotheism, you cannot go back to the so called pagan ways of old. Exiting the community is punishable by death since the assumption here that monotheism is the absolute standard of religious truth and once a person has embraced it, he or she cannot be expected to deviate from it. Every other form of relating to and conceptualizing God becomes a falsity; something which is deeply problematic in all these three religions. Perhaps all monotheistic traditions are premised on this innate intolerance of other religious traditions. 

With Islam the problem of apostasy becomes more complicated. One becomes an apostate not just by renouncing or criticizing God but all its attendant manifestations like the prophetic mission, the holy book and even casting aspersions on the religious traditions. This means that Islam itself, in all its manifestation cannot be critiqued without the danger of committing apostasy.

This was very nearly the situation in medieval Europe when the Church was tasked upon to inquire into charges of apostasy. Over the years though, the church was able to reform itself and therefore today in large parts of Christendom, the notion of apostasy itself has become obsolete. Although there is no sanctioned church in Islam, the fear of apostasy is perhaps much more in this tradition even today. Since there is no intermediary between God and man in Islam, every believing Muslim thinks it is her or his religious duty to safeguard the religion from imaginary assaults more so when the attack or critique is from inside the tradition. Not just mullahs, but there are groups dedicated to detect even the slightest hint of apostasy within the Muslim society.

They openly proclaim that the punishment for such experimentation with the Islamic tradition is death and mostly get away with it. It doesn’t really matter to them that the Quran prescribes no punishment for the alleged blasphemer. There is almost a settled consensus that the punishment for apostasy in Islam is death.

The dominant interpretation of Islam is that it is a cradle to the grave arrangement. Almost every aspect of a Muslim’s life is supposed to be governed by Islamic tenets defined the Sharia. This makes the possibility of effecting reform within Islam and Muslim societies an almost impossible task.

 Critiquing any aspect of the faith which has any bearing on the social conduct of Muslims can automatically be treated as an act of apostasy. It is not surprising therefore that the charge of blasphemy and apostasy has ranged from calling a teddy bear Mohammad to spitting on the wall of the mosque to practicing yoga. Under the circumstances, there have been reformists within Muslim societies who have been killed just for saying some very obvious things regarding the social condition of Muslims. The case of the Egyptian Farage Fouda comes readily to mind. Fouda, through his writings, was campaigning for a separation of religion and politics within his native country. The al-Azhar issued a fatwa against him and declared him an apostate following which he was killed by a group of Muslims who thought they were carrying out the command of Allah. Similar has been the fate of many a writers in Bangladesh who have paid with their life to talk about very basic freedoms in their society.  

It is therefore imperative that Muslims must have a frank and open conversation about the problem of apostasy within their societies. If Muslims go on killing everyone who is critical of their religion or any aspect of it, then it is Muslim society itself which will be the biggest loser. After all, any society, which bars the free expression of critique, regresses socially, politically and culturally. And perhaps such an intolerant attitude towards critique, both internal and external, is the prime reason for the decadent nature of contemporary Muslim societies.

Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

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