Saudi Arabia is one of the world's worst human rights abusers. They executed over a hundred people so far this year, and this week will be beheading a man then publicly crucifying his body as a punishment for protesting against them. So naturally, the British government thought they'd be perfect for the UN Human Rights Council:
Britain conducted secret vote-trading deals with Saudi Arabia to ensure both states were elected to the UN human rights council (UNHRC), according to leaked diplomatic cables.
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The Saudi foreign ministry files, passed to Wikileaks in June, refer to talks with British diplomats ahead of the November 2013 vote in New York. The documents have now been been translated by the organisation UN Watch – a Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organisation that scrutinises the world body – and newspaper the Australian.
The classified exchanges, the paper said, suggest that the UK initiated the secret negotiations by asking Saudi Arabia for its support. Both countries were eventually elected to the UNHRC, which has 47 member states.
This is absolutely morally bankrupt. But isn't it so very British?
