States should refrain from voting for Saudi Arabia in upcoming Human Rights Council elections at the UN General Assembly

Ahead of the 9 October UN Human Rights Council election at the UN General Assembly, ISHR and eight other human rights organisations sent an open joint letter to all UN Member States urging them to refrain from voting for Saudi Arabia. 

Saudi Arabia continues to perpetrate serious human rights violations, including the mass killing of migrants at the Yemen border, imposing the death penalty against child offenders, imprisoning human rights defenders, and engaging in systemic repression of free speech, peaceful assembly and protest.

Saudi Arabia has been repeatedly cited in the UN Secretary-General’s report on reprisals, highlighting its consistent targeting of individuals and organisations cooperating with the UN. Saudi Arabia continues to grossly violate women’s rights, and women human rights defenders are routinely criminalised and arbitrarily detained, and banned from travelling. 

Notwithstanding massive investment in reputation management, Saudi Arabia has not made meaningful human rights progress and remains involved in serious violations, including alleged war crimes in Yemen as found by the UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen. There has also been zero accountability for the crown prince’s role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite a U.S. intelligence assessment, released in February 2021, that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the murder.

States that are responsible for grave and widespread human rights violations, that systematically retaliate against those who cooperate with the UN, do not accept country visits by UN Special Procedures, and that repress civil society at home as well as engage in transnational repression against human rights defenders, should not be elected to the Human Rights Council.

UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251, which created the Human Rights Council, urges countries voting for candidates to ‘take into account the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights’. Council members are required to ‘uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights’ at home and abroad and ‘fully cooperate with the Council’.

By no measure does Saudi Arabia meet these requirements.

Our nine organisations urge all UN Member States delegations to take a stand and withhold their support for Saudi Arabia’s candidacy. 

Signatories: 

1. ALQST for Human Rights
2. Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
3. Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
4. European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR)
5. Gulf Centre for Human Rights
6. Human Rights Watch
7. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
8. MENA Rights Group
9. The Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in South West Asia and North Africa (WHRDMENA)