New Report Documents Saudi Rights Abuses That Harm U.S. Interests

WASHINGTON – FDD Senior Fellow David Andrew Weinberg is the principal author of a new report outlining the dangerous consequences that could result if the United States continues to condone or ignore human rights abuses by the Saudi Arabian government. The report, “How to Build a More Sustainable and Mutually Beneficial Relationship with Saudi Arabia: Blueprint for U.S. Government Policy,” published by Human Rights First, analyzes the current state of Saudi Arabia’s problematic policies and offers recommendations for how Washington can help improve the kingdom’s worrisome record.

The blueprint was issued today during a panel discussion moderated by Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley on human rights in Saudi Arabia during the 28^th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The U.S. government has neglected to make human rights a priority in its dealings with the Saudi government, Weinberg writes, even though Saudi abuses affect the region in ways that undermine American interests. Saudi Arabia has imprisoned numerous human rights leaders that stand up for greater inclusion and a more tolerant future for Saudi society. Riyadh has promoted extremist ideologies through its education system and radical clerics who receive frequent privileges from the state, while also supporting a reassertion of authoritarianism abroad, including in Egypt, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan and Morocco. And Riyadh’s promotion of intolerance abroad is detrimental to American foreign policy in the region, he says.

“If the United States fails to address the underlying sources of radicalization that emerge from Saudi Arabia, it could eventually win the battle against ISIL but lose the broader war against violent extremism,” Weinberg says.

“In the struggle against terrorism and violent extremism, the United States can no longer afford to ignore the harm that Saudi policies and human rights violations do to fuel regional instability and sectarianism,” said Human Rights First’s Neil Hicks. “This blueprint provides concrete recommendations that the U.S. government can take to promote the stability needed in the kingdom to support regional peace and security.”

Intense pressure needs to be placed on Saudi leadership to pursue reform before America feels the blowback from Saudi repression, Weinberg says, adding that a concerted effort by U.S. government to address this challenge will require engagement by the Obama White House, the State Department, various security agencies, and Congress.

 Key strategic recommendations include:

• President Obama should raise the issue of human rights abuses in all future dialogues with Saudi leaders, and should condition all future meetings with Saudi Interior Minister Mohammed bin Nayef Al Saud on his ministry taking concrete steps to end its abuses. The White House should also direct various U.S. agencies to support the State Department in its effort to raise concerns about the direction of Saudi policy at home and abroad, including to roll back draconian new counterterrorism laws that are used as a pretext to lock up non-violent rights defenders.
• The State Department should push back on Saudi Arabia’s brutal campaign against human rights defenders; urge Saudi Arabia to pass a law permitting civil society groups to organize without undue state interference; raise concerns when Riyadh provides state privileges to clerics who preach hatred against other religious groups such as Shi’ites, Christians, or Jews; initiate and make public an in-depth assessment of whether or not Saudi Arabia has kept its promises to take intolerant passages out of official school textbooks by 2014; and encourage a Saudi foreign policy that is less antagonistic to human rights in places like Bahrain and Egypt.
• Security agencies need to support the diplomatic efforts of the State Department by conveying to Saudi leadership that deteriorating human rights conditions strengthen Iran’s position in the region and foster instability in Egypt and Bahrain while boosting hardliners. The intelligence community should also devote more resources to tracking the international flow of Saudi textbooks and clerical messages abroad; monitor public and private Saudi support to combatants in conflict zones such as Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen; and explain in public and private why ongoing sectarian incitement out of Saudi Arabia provides an easy recruiting tool for Sunni terrorist groups such as ISIL.  
• Congress needs to push the executive branch to stay focused on pursuing improved human rights. Congress can draw attention to the imprisonment of human rights activists in Saudi Arabia; insist that the State Department release unpublished studies from 2012 and 2013 on religious hatred in Saudi textbooks and exportation of religious intolerance; and replace Saudi Arabia’s indefinite waiver under the International Religious Freedom Act with a one-time, 180-day window for implementing past Saudi promises of religious tolerance before the exploration of further statutory measures to elicit compliance under IRFA.  

“The lesson of the Arab Spring is that, however tempting it may be to give Arab allies a free pass on repression when faced with other regional crises, such short-term stability is a mirage, setting the stage for more dangerous – and anti-American – upheavals in due time,” Weinberg says. The new blueprint with Human Rights First emphasizes that because Saudi Arabia is such a pivotal and influential country in the Middle East, its egregious record of human rights abuses is causing serious long-term harm to America’s national security.

 Dr. Weinberg is a senior fellow at FDD focused on the six Arab Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman). He is a contributor to FDD’s Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance. Weinberg is a former Democratic staffer for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he advised the chairman on Middle East politics and U.S. policy. He testified in 2014 before Congress on U.S. relations with the Gulf states and recently published monographs on Qatar-based terror finance and on intolerant content in official Saudi textbooks. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was an affiliate for five years with MIT’s Security Studies program.

The full report can be viewed here.

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