Human Rights (Saudi Arabia)
Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Stewart Malcolm McDonald(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Stewart McDonald
For the most part, yes.
Last week, at Foreign Office questions, I asked the Minister about two specific points. I hate to say this, but I received an answer to neither, so I want to press the questions now. First, I asked whether the Minister would instruct the United Kingdom ambassador in Riyadh to request a visit to the prison in which Mr Badawi is being held so that we might get a report on his mental and physical state and on the conditions in which he is being held. Will the Minister undertake to give such an assurance?
Secondly, will the Minister state without equivocation—there is plenty of precedent for this, although funnily enough not in Saudi Arabia—that Mr Badawi should be set free? He is a prisoner of conscience and he should not be in prison. Surely the Government agree with that. If so, will the Minister please state that in his response?
Last week in the main Chamber, the Minister sought to give me some kind of reassurance: he said that the Saudi supreme court was reviewing the case. The Minister is a reasonable man, so I am sure he does not seriously expect me or the House to find any reassurance in the fact that the same justice system that put Mr Badawi where he is today is now marking its own homework to determine whether he should still be in prison. The Saudi justice system is not a normal justice system and the Saudi Government are not a normal Government—and we should stop treating them as such. The Minister might be willing to turn a blind eye, but he cannot expect us to ignore the crimes and brutal human rights abuses of which the Saudi regime is guilty.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
As my hon. Friend is aware, Saudi Arabia sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council and hosted an international human rights conference that resolved to combat intolerance and violence based on religious belief, even though the country has one of the worst records of abuse in the world today. The number of executions has been rising and stands at a startling rate: 88 people were executed last year in Saudi Arabia. Surely that cannot continue.