Saudi Arabia has failed to secure a seat on the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council in a vote on the three-year term beginning in January 2025. The kingdom received 117 votes in a secret ballot on Wednesday, the lowest number garnered by states competing for five seats on the Asia-Pacific region’s slate. Qatar – which stood for a second term – was the only Arab state to win in this round.
Saudi Arabia also failed in its first bid in 2020.
While it possesses no mandatory authority, the Geneva-based council upholds human rights laws, investigates records of all countries and reports on abuse, torture, imprisonment and discrimination, even in council member states where human rights are routinely ignored and violated.
Before the vote, UN director at Human Rights Watch Louis Charbonneau said Saudi Arabia was “unfit to serve” on the council. “Governments that commit crimes against humanity or similar atrocities and ensure impunity for those responsible shouldn’t be rewarded on the UN’s top human rights body,” he said.
Mr Charbonneau cited the council’s investigation of Saudi border guards allegedly shooting hundreds of Ethiopian migrants seeking to enter the kingdom from Yemen during 2022 and 2023, which the Saudis have denied, and the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
The vote took place after Riyadh had mounted a billion-dollar lobbying campaign to showcase advances in the kingdom’s practices since crown prince Mohammed bin Salman assumed de facto power between 2015-2017 and launched his Vision 2030 reform programme. Relaxations of social and cultural restrictions have not, however, ended rights abuses.
There has been no accountability for war crimes after the Saudis attacked Yemen in March 2015. Rivals of the crown prince and other branches of the royal family have been imprisoned. Prominent activists have been jailed and subjected to travel bans on release. Wealthy businessmen and royals have been detained, accused of corruption and stripped of assets. Women have gained the rights to drive and travel in the country and abroad on their own, but they remain under male guardianship and suffer discrimination in marriage and divorce. Saudi Arabia retains execution for non-lethal offences.
Director of rights group Reprieve Maya Foa told UK-based Middle East Eye that Riyadh has executed 213 people this year. “As the execution crisis in the kingdom intensifies, with killings on a daily basis, including drug offenders and people whose only crime was to stand up for human rights, this vote shows that the world is watching and taking note,” it said.
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