GENEVA – Geneva Council for Human Rights and Justice (GCHRJ) called for a unified EU position to stop the arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The council expressed it concerns due to the divided European countries attitudes towards responding to the demands of the European Parliament and several European governments regarding an immediate sale of arms to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
GCHRJ stressed that the demands of arms ban on Saudi Arabia and UAE should be dealt with in accordance with Europe’s values and legal and moral responsibilities, not its interests and privileges.
It confirmed that the involvement of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE in committing war crimes against civilians in Yemen for more than three years, requires EU countries to take immediate positions to stop selling arms to the two countries and not to participate in their violations of civilians as a complicity in those violations.
The Saudi Arabia and the UAE collation on Yemen led to the deaths of more than 10 thousand Yemenis and pushed the country to the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations in light record, the council added.
GCHRJ also highlighted the black record of KSA and UAE in human rights and the ongoing horrific violations of detaining and targeting human rights activists, journalists and dissidents, highlighting the nature of the autocratic regime that governs the two countries.
The Rights Council said that Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the murder of Saudi opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his consulate in Istanbul on the second of this month and the consequential international criticism tests the positions of European countries to take serious and immediate action against Riyadh; at least stop selling weapons.
It added that the KSA and UAE human rights violations reached a serious and unprecedented level in light of the detention of hundreds of prisoners of conscience in their prisons arbitrarily and without any legal basis to reflect a challenge from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to the growing international criticism of its illegal practices.
Geneva Council for Human Rights and Justice concluded its statement by stressing the responsibility of the European Union to move from the verbal condemnation of practices of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to practical measures that impose the values of European countries and their stated positions to defend human rights as a priority rather than financial interests and deals with authoritarian countries.
