Europe must condemn repression in Saudi Arabia rather than seeing the Kingdom as a dependably "stable" political partner, writes Kate Allen of Amnesty International
Throughout the last six months of unprecedented turbulence in the Middle East the elephant in the room has been Saudi Arabia. What have the ultra-conservative Saudi royal family and the country's influential clerics had to say about the demands for democracy and human rights being heard in neighbouring nations all around them?
The answer is, as little as possible. Instead, the authorities have stamped down on the smallest efforts to push for change in their own country. There have been arrests of those behind attempts to found a new political party - the Islamic Umma Party - arrests of individual clerics who have called for political reforms, arrests of Shi'a protestors in the Eastern Province, arrests of human rights activists and arrests of female Women2Drive campaigners - in their high-profile effort to challenge the ban on women driving in the Kingdom.
For more: EU turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia - Public Service Europe
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