50 HR Organizations Call for Cancellation of Saudi Membership in UNHRC

In a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, the Arab rights groups touched upon the crimes committed by the Riyadh regime in Yemen since the start of its aggressions, stressing the necessity to cancel the membership of the regime in the UNHRC, the Arabic-language Al-Ahed news website reported.

Saudi Arabia was voted onto the council in what some British politicians say was a secret vote-trading deal in 2013.

The French-based Arab Commission for Human Rights, Amman Center for Human Rights Studies, the Arab Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Iraqi Alliance for Human Rights Organizations, Yemen Organization for Defending Rights and Democratic Freedoms, Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, and Tunisian Association of Democratic Women are among the 50 organizations and alliances that signed the letter.

The letter came as massive attacks by a coalition led by the Saudi regime against Yemen’s defenseless people continue despite international calls for an end to the aggressions.

On March 26, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies began to launch deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to the fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

About 7,500 people have lost their lives in the Saudi airstrikes, and a total of nearly 14,000 people have been injured in the protracted war on Yemen.