One of the world’s most repressive theocratic regimes, Saudi Arabia, has won membership in the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, along with such repressive countries as Cuba and China. The UN General Assembly, much to its discredit, made that egregious decision on Nov. 12.
Saudi Arabia’s application should have been denied because of its abysmal record on the rights of women, religious freedom and political liberties.
The Saudi government, in a recent report submitted to the UN, claims that “Sharia law guarantees equality of the sexes.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Although there have been belated advances in the realm of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, Saudi women, incredibly enough, are not even permitted to drive vehicles.
Saudi Arabia has the dubious distinction of being the world’s only country where driving is off-limits to women. Saudi law does not explicitly ban women from driving, but licenses are not issued to females.
Recently, 60 Saudi women who obtained their licences abroad and who have petitioned the government to overturn this retrogressive policy took to the roads to make a point. Sixteen of the women were detained by the police after having been threatened and denounced by the government and religious figures.
The ministry of interior, warning against acts that “disturb the social peace and open the door to discord,” threatened to punish anyone who supported their cause. ” In another blast from the past, several clerics claimed that letting women drive would degrade and undermine Saudi society.
The campaign that Saudi women have launched is anything but subversive. Indeed, it is inextricably bound up with fundamental human rights. As one of the organizers said, “This is not a revolution.”
That women in Saudi Arabia are denied this basic right is hardly surprising. Democracy, as it is understood in democratic and progressive countries such as Canada and Israel, is simply non-existent in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia is essentially a family business, owned and operated by the autocratic House of Saud. Normal democratic practices and norms have not taken root in Saudi Arabia because the government does not tolerate them.
Freedom of religion is also problematic in Saudi Arabia, as the watchdog organization UN Watch points out.
Non-Muslims are free to practise their religion in the privacy of their homes or in clubs, yet recently, 53 Ethiopian Christians were arrested by the religious police for the crime of praying in a private residence.
That is just part of the problem. In Saudi Arabia, the construction of churches, temples and synagogues are strictly forbidden. Only mosques may be built. Just imagine the outcry in the Muslim world if Muslims in Canada or the United States were forbidden to build mosques and forced to retreat into the privacy of their homes to hold prayer services.
Regrettably, Saudi intolerance transcends religion. Homosexuality, for example, is considered a felony punishable by death.
Saudi Arabia, with its vast oil reserves, is a strategically important country in the Middle East. But it should not have been admitted into the Human Rights Council until it had reformed itself from top to bottom. This is not likely to happen any time soon.