Saudi Arabia’s decision last weekend to execute forty-seven alleged terrorists, many of them by beheading, has caused an international outcry as well as exacerbating already severe tensions between Sunni and Shia Islam in the Middle East.
But it has also raised once again the controversial issue of Britain’s relationship with the Saudi government. Is Britain too subservient to a regime widely condemned for human rights abuses? Or do Britain’s own interests justify a policy of avoiding alienating the regime by censuring it more strongly?
The forty-seven who were executed simultaneously in twelve Saudi prisons last Saturday had been convicted of carrying out or plotting to carry out terrorist attacks. Forty-three of them were Sunni jihadis. Saudi Arabia is a majority Sunni country governed by a royal family that is Wahhabi, an extreme Sunni group.
The other four were Shia muslims. The most prominent among them was Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a senior Shia cleric, involved in mass anti-government protests in the Shia-majority eastern province of Saudi Arabia back in 2011. His supporters claim his protests had always been peaceful. His killing caused outrage throughout the Shia world, most notably in Iran, Saudi Arabia’s chief rival in the Gulf. The Saudi embassy in Teheran was ransacked by protesting Iranians and the Saudi government responded by cutting off diplomatic relations with Iran.
Condemnation of the executions came from right across the world. The United Nations general-secretary, Ban Ki-moon, said he was ‘deeply dismayed’ by them. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the EU had serious concerns ‘regarding the respect of basic civil and political rights’ in the country. By contrast, Britain’s response seemed in some people’s eyes to be distinctly muted. It was left to a junior foreign office minister, Tobias Ellwood, to express ‘disappointment’. When David Cameron came to address the issue he simply said that the British government ‘condemned the death penalty’, referring to a broad policy rather than the specific executions in Saudi Arabia.
To many people, what seemed like a less than thoroughgoing condemnation of a palpable human rights abuse was just the latest of what they regard as Britain’s long record of kowtowing to a regime they believe ought to be vigorously challenged. This point of view was expressed by Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. He said: ‘Saudi Arabia is a barbaric regime and the UK government must do more to stand up to them.’
Those who condemn Britain’s demeanour towards Saudi Arabia cite a long list of evidence of what they regard as hypocritical pandering. Back in 2011 the British government left Saudi Arabia off a list of thirty countries it wanted British diplomats to challenge with regard to their use of the death penalty. Even more outrageous in their eyes was British backing for Saudi Arabia to take the chair of the UN human rights council, notwithstanding the fact that not only does the country engage in judicial beheading but regularly flogs its citizens simply for engaging in political dissent. Last year Raif Badawi, a blogger, was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ten years imprisonment. The first fifty lashes were administered before international protest caused the Saudi government to suspend the rest of the sentence.
Critics of British policy towards Saudi Arabia see the regime there as little better than Isis, which the British government has joined an international coalition to defeat. But the reason the Saudis are treated differently, the critics say, is because of trade: Saudi Arabia is Britain’s biggest export market for arms. Amnesty estimates that the British government has signed more than one hundred arms export licences to Saudi Arabia over the last year, to a value of £1.75bn. The government’s critics point to the fact that since the election a committee on arms export control has not been reconvened, fuelling the suspicion that the government does not want its arms deals to Saudi Arabia (and other countries) put under the spotlight.
But defenders of Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia argue that there is far more to it than simply arms deals. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, a former Tory foreign secretary, speaks of ‘a number of advantages’, not the last of which is access to Saudi intelligence in the fight against terrorism. He said: ‘There are a number of circumstance when Saudi Arabia and the West have co-operated effectively on counter-terrorism. That has to be by far the single most important priority at this time.’
Others argue that however unappealing the Saudi regime may be, it provides vital stability in the region. They point out how important it is that the world’s biggest oil exporter should be under stable government. But they also argue that the Saudi government helps to keep the threat from Sunni jihadists under greater control than would be the case if Saudi Arabia did not have such a strong authoritarian government. Osama bin Laden, they remind us, was a Saudi national who wanted the Saudi government to fight the West not cooperate with it. And they argue that strong pro-Isis feeling among a substantial number of the Saudi population helps explain why the Saudi government was ready to execute Nimr al-Nimr: that feeling needed to be appeased if it was to be kept under control.
So defenders of British government policy towards Saudi Arabia say that it is quite simply in British interests to keep on side with the Saudi regime. But they deny this amounts to craven subservience citing, for example, the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove’s, readiness to cancel a contract to provide British expertise to the Saudi prison system on the grounds of its human rights record.
To those who say Britain should stand up robustly to what they see as a barbaric regime, the government’s defenders ask a simple question: would you prefer the undemocratic Saudi monarchy to be swept away and the country to be run by the likes of Isis, who could not be clearer in their hostility to the West and to our whole way of life?
Some would say that this question answers itself. But to many others it is simply intolerable and hypocritical for Britain to sound off about human rights abuses in the world and claim to be a champion of those rights while being ready to turn a blind eye to a regime they see as one of the most inhumane in the world.
What’s your view? What do you think should be Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia?
Let us know.
