“Freedom. Democracy. Equality. These are precious”. David Cameron & the Saudi Threat.

“…calling for deviant thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based”
– Saudi Arabia’s definition of terrorism.

There was a curious confidence to the Prime Minister’s hypocrisy at the Conservative Party Conference today. From talk of his vision for home ownership from a government with record low house building, to his apparent care for children with mental health issues, despite cutting over £80mn from child & adolescent services in the past five years including early intervention. But It takes an impressive kind of mental gymnastics to secretly deal to put Saudi Arabia at the top of the table of the UN Human Rights Council, and then take to the stage in front of the entire country, and say:

“We need to confront – and I mean really confront – extremism.”

– Saudi Arabia has been one of the largest sources of funds for the Afghan Taliban, according to a US Embassy cable from 2009. By 2012, 454 British troops had died in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. So, whilst David Cameron stands in front of the British public to tell us all how much he seeks to keep the country safe, he not only eulogised the dead king of a country that funded the murder of British soldiers, but also secretly dealt to ensure they are at the top of the human rights table at the UN, whilst at the same time, shamefully vowing to ‘really confront extremism‘.

In his speech, Cameron referred to Corbyn as a ‘terrorist sympathiser‘. A position I tend to agree with. Presumably this was because of one of two comments Corbyn made. Firstly, his comment that killing Osama Bin Laden rather than putting him on trial was a ‘tragedy‘. A sentiment similarly shared by Boris Johnson, who said:

“British soldiers are not taught to murder unarmed people in the act of surrendering. Bin Laden should be put on trial; not in Britain, but in the place where he organised the biggest and most terrible of his massacres, New York.”

– Or for Corbyn’s comment that Hamas are ‘dedicated to social justice‘. The latter is indefensible and Cameron is right to condemn it. The problem is, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia – again a country currently heading up the UN Human Rights Council, thanks to our Prime Minister – donated around $8mn to Hamas recently. I guess you’re a ‘terror sympathiser‘ if you say words, but not if you further help to empower their financial backers.

When it comes to human rights in Saudi, it is worth noting that Saudi Arabia is currently demanding that the UN remove gay rights from it’s global goals over the coming years. This is keeping in line with the Saudi policy of publicly flogging, chemically castrating, and beheading anyone convicted of homosexuality in the country. Further, the Interior Ministry for Saudi deem it ‘terrorism‘ in Saudi Arabia to question Islam, to question the regime, and to beatheist. Indeed, so dedicated are they to the cause of human rights for which the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has helped empower them, that they sentenced Waleed Abu-l Khair – recipient of 2012 Olof Palm prize for human rights, and lawyer for Raif Badawi – to 15 years in prison for ‘offences’. His arrest was a few months prior to Saudi Arabia arresting, beheading, and publicly displaying the mutilated corpses of five Yemeni men. (Graphic image, see here).

As if the absurdity of the Prime Minister’s hypocrisy wasn’t glaringly obvious by now, Cameron goes on to speak of religious intolerance taught at schools:

“And be in no doubt: if you are teaching intolerance, we will shut you down.”

– His apparent concern for the radicalising of young people in schools follows his interview with Jon Snow for Channel 4 recently, in which he genuinely stated that:

“Saudi Arabia actually have a good record of deradicalising”.

– A country that bans criticism of Islam, & instituted a special police unit to investigate ‘witchcraft’ is not good at deradicalising. It is as radical as one can be. This is especially true when it comes to indoctrinating children; along with funding the Taliban, Saudi Arabia has been a principle source of funding for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, according to the same US Embassy cable from 2009. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba are a terror group active in Asia, responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks among many others. According to another cable, published in Pakistan’s ‘Dawn’ newspaper, Gulf States including Saudi Arabia were responsible for funding an Islamist network – that includes Lashkar-e-Tayyaba – in Pakistan, recruiting young children in order to create future Jihadists. The network:

“…reportedly exploited worsening poverty in these areas of the province to recruit children into the divisions’ growing Deobandi and Ahl-e Hadith madrassa network from which they were indoctrinated into jihadi philosophy, deployed to regional training/indoctrination centers, and ultimately sent to terrorist training camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)”

Recruiters “…generally exploit families with multiple children, particularly those facing severe financial difficulties in light of inflation, poor crop yields, and growing unemployment in both urban and rural areas in the southern and western Punjab. Oftentimes, these families are identified and initially approached/assisted by ostensibly “charitable” organizations including Jamaat-ud-Dawa (a front for designated foreign terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Tayyaba), the Al-Khidmat Foundation (linked to religious political party Jamaat-e-Islami), or Jaish-e-Mohammad (a charitable front for the designated foreign terrorist organization of the same name).”

– The Prime Minister intends to ‘confront extremism‘ and wage a war on religious indoctrination in schools by making seedy deals with a country that funded a Taliban regime that murdered British soldiers, that chemically castrates, flogs, and beheads gay folk, that silences criticism & punishes free expression with torture and death, that imprisons human rights activists, that hunts out and imprisons people for ‘witchcraft’, that hangs beheaded bodies on public display, that actively funds the indoctrination of children into an Islamist cult that fights and kills to prevent liberal, secular, democratic societies from flourishing, and commits acts of terror across the World, threatening the UK every single day. That same country is now heading up the UN Human Rights Council thanks in part to the Prime Minister. The same Prime Minister who has the nerve to refer to, well, anyone else as a ‘threat‘ to the UK’s security.

“Freedom. Democracy. Equality. These are precious. People fought for them – many died for them…”

– Indeed. Many are still dying for the freedoms that Cameron correctly identifies as precious. Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr is about to be beheaded and crucified for exercising his birthright to free expression and scrutinising a regime that the Prime Minister has just elevated to the head of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations. The hypocrisy is outstanding. The freedoms of all are threatened the moment you empower those who work to undermine and replace those freedoms with perpetual terror, the moment you empower those who actively fund groups willing to recruit children to commit mass atrocities. The Prime Minister has sided with the abusers.