Al-Awwad continues to whitewash and falsify the facts at the HRC

The Saudi authorities reiterated their allegations regarding human rights reforms to continue a policy of whitewashing and falsification of facts.

In his speech during the opening of the 49th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on March 3, 2022, the head of the official Human Rights Commission, Awwad Al-Awwad, said that Saudi Arabia had taken several steps to implement its international and national obligations.

Al-Awwad’s speech came in light of flagrant violations of Saudi Arabia’s, especially the two conventions against torture and the rights of the child, which are constantly violated in prisons through torture and ill-treatment of detainees, and in the judiciary, where minors are still subject to death sentences and arbitrary sentences.

Al-Awwad talked about many steps Saudi Arabia has taken, including issuing the national policy to prevent child labour and promote the rights of the elderly. Al-Awwad’s speech comes in light of documenting many violations committed against the elderly, including the arrest of a number of them.

In addition, the elderly were significantly affected by the government-led displacement operations in several areas, the latest of which was the city of Jeddah. According to the information, the removal and eviction operations deprived thousands, including the elderly, of their fundamental right to housing.

Al-Awwad claimed that the issues related to civil status and the penal code had been resolved, in light of the continued use of loose concepts of charges and with the continuation of issuing punitive death sentences that depend on the opinion of the judge without a legal text to punish prisoners of conscience, along with others facing charges that are not the most serious.

Al-Awwad said that Saudi Arabia sought to improve women’s human rights conditions and pointed out that women occupy 35% of decision-making positions.

The Saudi authorities repeat their allegations regarding women’s rights, even though the facts confirm the inadequacy of the laws that the government said it has put in place to protect women, in addition to the continued harassment and violations of human rights activists and defenders through arrests, bans from work or travel, and others.

Al-Awwad ended his speech by calling on the Human Rights Council to improve human rights through constructive dialogue and confronting the practices of politicization and selectivity.

The Saudi authorities constantly attack organizations and individuals who work to expose the violations they practice and place any criticism of them before international bodies in politicization.

The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights confirmed that monitoring the reality of violations inside Saudi Arabia, despite the scarcity of information due to restrictions on activists, confirms the falsity of official allegations before international bodies.

The organization stressed that the policy of silence that Saudi Arabia is trying to impose at home by silencing human rights defenders did not enable it to hide the facts.