Rights groups urge countries to boycott this month’s Saudi Arabia G20 summit

International rights groups, British lawyers and relatives of activists behind bars have urged countries to boycott this month’s G20 summit hosted by Saudi Arabia and demand the Kingdom immediately release unlawfully detained women’s right activists and dissidents.

Countries including the United Kingdom are expected to virtually attend the 21- 22 November event which King Salman will chair online because of the coronavirus.

The Kingdom took over the G20 presidency at a time of heavy global criticism of its human rights record over 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its Istanbul consulate, detention of women’s rights activists and the Yemen war.

Riyadh has repeatedly denied ordering the Khashoggi murder as well as allegations of human rights abuses and has hoped to shift the focus on to reforms launched by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to open up the kingdom and diversify its economy.

But rights defenders say there has been a significant increase in repression over the last few years and have called on countries participating in the G20 to take firmer action against the Kingdom.

The family of Loujain al-Hathloul, 31, a jailed Saudi activist who is currently on a hunger strike in protest at her detention conditions, told The Independent that one of the main talking points in this year’s summit is female empowerment which is “hypocritical”.

Her case is mentioned in a 40-page report written by British QC Baroness Helena Kennedy that was submitted on Tuesday to the British parliament, other G20 countries as well as relevant bodies at the European Union and United Nations.

The report identifies at least 22 human rights defenders, the majority of them women, unlawfully behind bars since 2018 around the time Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on women driving.

It presents evidence of what it concludes is unlawful and arbitrary detention, unfair trials and torture perpetrated by people closely connected to the country’s top leaders.

Baroness Kennedy, a labour peer, called on the UK government and other G20 world leaders to demand the release of those unlawfully held, to boycott the event as well as to impose sanctions on those responsible including figures close to the crown prince.

“The governments that are attending this summit should use their leverage to call for the women to be released. People can’t stand by, to remain silent is to be complicit,” she told The Independent.

“I am calling for targeted sanctions against the people who we have identified. We should not participate in the G20 It’s just appalling.”

It followed the launch of a new campaign by Human Right Watch that has also urged the G20 attendees to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to provide accountability for past abuses. The New York based rights group said G20 countries awarded Riyadh the presidency for 2020, “despite the Saudi government’s unrelenting assault on fundamental freedom”.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied the allegations and instead points to the fact it is pushing through major social reforms including allowing women to drive two years ago.

There were reports in British media that Riyadh was even mulling clemency ahead of G20. But the Saudi Arabian embassy in London clarified that the comments attributed to Saudi ambassador to London Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Sultan al Saud were taken out of context and “did not reflect the conversation accurately”.

“It is up to the courts to decide the outcome of detainees in accordance with correct legal procedures,” the statement read.

In previous interviews the ambassador has said that the women were detained for several reasons beyond their efforts to seek the right to drive.  

Among the prominent activists behind bars is Loujain la-Hathloul l who campaigned for Saudi women’s right to drive but was arrested alongside nine other activists in May 2018, months before the driving ban was being lifted. She is two weeks into her second hunger strike that she said will continue until the authorities give her the right to call her family.

Last week a UN women’s rights committee warned of her deteriorating health.

Her sister Lina told The Independent that she was first held in an unofficial prison where she was subject to electric shocks, water boarded, flogged, sexually harassed, deprived of sleep and force fed.

She was later held in solitary confinement from mid-April until January of this year, which her family claim left her traumatised.

According to Baroness Kennedy’s report, she is facing 12 charges including inciting and inviting to change the political system in the Kingdom and applying for a job at the United Nations. She has yet to be sentenced, her trial has been repeatedly posted.

Lina said her parents were permitted to visit her on 26 October in high security al-Hayer prison in Riyadh.

“This is the most desperate we have seen her in terms of her psychological health. We have never seen her so weak,” Lina told The Independent.

Baroness Kennedy has urged Riyadh to allow international lawyers to visit the prisons and interview women like Loujain.

“The way in which the world is going to sit at their table is a disgrace,” she added.