Press TV has interviewed Syed Wasif, a professor of international law in Trinity University, Washington, regarding the West's policies towards the Saudi's human rights record. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Q: We have been talking about Saudi Arabia's human rights record over the past years, especially in light of the descent that we are seeing with the uprisings, not just in the eastern provinces but also in sporadic areas across the country. We have seen the west use human rights as a tool for its foreign policy. Why isn't it being [applied] to Saudi Arabia?
Wasif: Very beautiful question and a very rare one indeed. My students in university where I teach at the Master's level on the Middle Eastern politics also ask me the same question. Not just this question that is based on human rights abuses and violations made by regimes there, especially Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen and so on, but with the structure of government, the legacy that they have, the ideology which they claim to follow, the women's affairs, so it is not an economical or financial affairs and not just human rights affairs. Unfortunately, this is a main problem. Human rights violation is there in Saudi Arabia. It is very difficult for me to explain to the American students here in Washington DC as to why is there a dichotomy in the foreign policy goals of the Western powers, especially the United States when it comes to implementing human rights laws there. So this is the problem.
The problem is oil, the problem is Israel there and the problem is that the Saudis and the Americans have a security deal aboard US ... during the 1950s.So, the Americans promise a total security and a total backing support to Saudi regime, whatever they do, regardless of their policies, regardless of their human rights and civil liberties violation, they have supported and they are still supporting it. So the Saudis get the backing from the American government. Successive governments, no matter who is on the right side, a Republican president or a Democratic president, it doesn't matter. So, this is a dichotomy.
The American students feel pretty difficult to digest this reality and to comprehend why is it [the US] doing so while it has human rights abuses and intervenes elsewhere, for instance in Libya, and why don't the Bahraini and the Saudi opposition have the same support from the United States and why don't they charge the Saudi regime in accordance with the US Tort Claims Act of 1789 or in conjunction with other human rights laws in the United States. So it is difficult for me to tell the students why they don't do that. I think it is in the hands of American public, the American students and the American intellectuals to pressurize the American government and to basically implement the same uniform standard which they implemented in other parts of the world where they have their interests in support of the human rights. In order to prolong their interests there, they should go with the same understanding, with the same human rights support to the opposition in Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain.
Q: The West has turned a blind eye to the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia for the sake of security, stability and oil. Behind closed doors, we do know this is taking place but what about as far as public relations go? How far is the US willing to let Saudi Arabia continue with these atrocities, with them coming out onto the public platform, we are just showing videos of abuses taking place in Saudi jails and in other places as well, committed by the government of Saudi Arabia, how long will the US sit quietly and let Saudi Arabia go ahead?
Wasif: As long as the US intelligentsia keeps quiet, as long as the US media turns a blind eye on that, these are the two main facts in the United States which shed the US foreign policy or in fact the US domestic policies as well. So, we see that all of the Middle Eastern regimes, especially Saudi Arabia has a lot of stake in the American media outlets here. They have shares here, they have connections here, they have lobbies here, they have senators and congressmen here, they have in the shape of different departments in different universities, they pay them, they establish new departments on the Middle Eastern affairs, they pay the total expenditure of those departments. They pay the research work of the professors here, in the American universities. They pay for scholarships and grants for American students and American professors.
So how could you expect from these two recipients of the Saudi aids in different shapes to be against the Saudi regime or to be against or in favor of the human rights law. So this is the case here and the United States' government basically does rely on these two elements which is mock up of the United States' policies. That is again the US media and the US intelligentsia which go hand in hand. So, there is a stake there, in terms of both the media and the intelligentsia. The second thing about the human rights abuses there, if you draw a line of comparison between Saudi Arabia and any other Muslim countries vis-a-vis its women's affairs, still Saudi women are not allowed to drive a car. We are living in the 21st century and women there, are not allowed to drive a car? If you see the ratio of single women in Saudi Arabia, it is the highest in the entire Middle East region. That means the women there, are spending a life of celibacy. They are not allowed to marry outside of the tribe, outside of the Saudi Arabia. Ultimately it is going to lead to human rights abuses; it is going to lead to domestic violence; it is going to lead to more corruption.
We don't see any American writing, article or report whether in electronic or in print media vis-a-vis women's state of affairs about the deplorable situation of women in Saudi Arabia. So we are not just talking about political aspects of the Saudi society or the human rights violations in general in Saudi Arabia. If we look at some specific aspects as I just said and as I mentioned about the women's affairs, the pride of Saudi women is more deplorable than the pride of any other women. If you compare it to the pride of African women living in ..., still they have the right to do whatever they feel like but Saudi women, not just driving and marriage affairs or celibacy, they are not allowed to pursue education in political and legal affairs, they are just confined to medical, nursing and teaching professions and that's it. So this is how you treat women in your country? Especially in Saudi Arabia; and we don't see any kind of [reaction] from the Western society, from the Western governments asking Saudi Arabia to follow human rights laws.
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