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Shouts of 'murderers' and 'torturers' greet King Abdullah on Palace tour
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sernt by marcus - activ-l
The Independent Oct 31, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3112811.ece
Shouts of 'murderers' and 'torturers' greet King Abdullah on Palace tour
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
One of the most controversial state visits to Britain of recent times
began officially yesterday with a royal welcome, set against a backdrop
of protest placards.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was officially welcomed by a guard of
honour with the Queen at Horseguards Parade. Gordon Brown, Jacqui
Smith, the Home Secretary, and the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells
joined dignitaries on the dais. The King then lunched with the Queen
and the Duke of Edinburgh in the Bow Room at the Palace before being
shown a specially created exhibition of Saudi items from the Royal
Collection.
Beyond the gates of the Palace, however, the growing outcry continued.
Protesters calling for the reopening of a corruption inquiry into a
multibillion-dollar arms deal for Typhoon fighters from the UK jeered
the Saudi King as the Government rolled out the red carpet to greet
him. Scores of protesters shouted "murderers", "torturers", and "shame
on you" at King Abdullah as he passed by in a gilded horse-drawn coach.
As the Prime Minister welcomes the King to No 10 today, Labour MPs are
planning a demonstration outside the Saudi embassy in London.
Vince Cable, the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, who is
boycotting events during the visit, said Mr Brown should answer a list
of questions including whether he has sought an apology over the arrest
and torture of the British expat engineer Sandy Mitchell by the Saudi
authorities. Mr Mitchell is expected to be among the protesters.
Mr Cable said Mr Brown should raise with the Saudi King five causes of
civil rights abuses in the country gender discrimination, the death
penalty, cruel punishments, the wholesale use of torture and the
ill-treatment of homo***uals.
On corruption charges, including alleged "backhanders" for arms deals,
Mr Cable asked: "Why is it that the UK has dropped the investigation
into Al Yamamah deal in the same year that the US has opened an
investigation into the issue? Will Mr Brown reopen the investigation by
the SFO into BAE Systems and alleged corruption with regards to Saudi
Arabia?" Would Mr Brown give his backing to the release of the National
Audit Office re****t into the Al Yamamah case which is the only re****t
conducted by the NAO which has never been released?
He said Mr Brown also needed to say whether the Government was giving
full co-operation to the US Justice Department, or whether he believed
the US action compromised international security. Would he co-operate
if the US charges were brought against British Government officials? Mr
Cable asked.
More than 30 MPs and celebrities have also signed an open letter
protesting at the visit. One of the signatories, the comedian Mark
Thomas, 44, who helped the group Campaign Against Arms Trade organise
the protest, said: "It's really im****tant to show opposition to this
disgusting hypocritical state of affairs where governments, rules of
law, human affairs and democracy are cast aside to wor****p a barrel of
oil."
Another signatory, Clare Short, the former secretary for international
development who resigned from the Blair government, accused the
Government of an "absolutely craven foreign policy" towards Saudi
Arabia. "It is not just that the Saudis have a terrible record on human
rights at home. They are ex****ting an extreme fundamentalist form of
Islam. We should not be giving a state visit to this regime," she said.
The human rights activist Peter Tatchell said it was "incredible
hypocrisy" for ministers to condemn the Burma and Zimbabwe while saying
nothing about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. He said: "It just
shows oil and arms sales seem to have bought the Government's silence."
Peter Kilfoyle, a former defence minister, and a string of trade union
leaders such as Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Britain's
biggest union, Unite, were also among the signatories. "We believe that
there is a conspiracy of silence about the human rights abuses being
perpetrated by the Saudi regime," their letter said.
*
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