Amnesty International said that United States President Joe Biden must keep his promise to place human rights at the forefront of his first trip to the Middle East and North Africa since taking office and exert all of his influence to push for rapid and significant change.
At present,President Biden visiting Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories.He will also visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt. While in Saudi Arabia and Egypt,he is expected to meet with a number of leaders,Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman,Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The executive director of Amnesty International USA, Paul O’Brien warned that the Biden administration “must stop its blatant support of shocking crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations committed by its partners, deliberately allowing rampant abuses with impunity.”
Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian journalist, was killed on May 11 while reporting on an Israeli military operation in the West Bank. This incident provides as a stark reminder of the crimes committed by Israeli authorities to uphold their oppressive and domineering regime over Palestinians, as well as the US’s role in defending Israel from responsibility. In the context of an apartheid regime against Palestinians throughout Israel and the OPT, unlawful killings, arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, collective punishment, and forced displacement take place.
Thousands of Palestinian homes have been demolished and whole Palestinian villages have been forcibly evicted by the Israeli authorities. Residents in Ras Jrabah, in Israel’s Naqab/Negev region, and Masafer Yatta, in the southern West Bank, are immediately in danger of being evicted. Israeli forces engaged in suspected war crimes in the Gaza Strip during the most recent military conflict in May 2021, which resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. Due to Israel’s blockade of Gaza since 2007, it is impossible to rebuild hospitals, housing, and other vital infrastructure.
Amneaty International urges that the Biden administration and the US Congress must stop the shipments of arms to the Israeli military until it is ensured that they won’t be used in serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The freedoms of expression, association, and movement are still being severely restricted by the Saudi Arabian government. The majority of the nation’s human rights defenders, including women’s rights advocates, independent journalists, writers, and activists, have been arbitrarily detained for their job or for using social media for human rights advocacy by the middle of 2021.
30 cases of Saudi Arabian activists and human rights defenders who were found guilty after heinously unfair trials — most frequently by the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) — were recorded by Amnesty International. These individuals received prison sentences, followed by travel restrictions. Informally imposed travel restrictions have also been placed on the relatives of activists without any prior warning or legal decisions.
More than three years after Jamal Khashoggi’s state-authorized murder, his family still does not know where his remains are, and none of those responsible for his death have faced any punishment.
Amnesty International urges President Biden to put pressure on Saudi Arabian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all activists and human rights defenders detained for peacefully exercising their human rights, lift all arbitrary travel restrictions placed on them and their family members with the intention of punishing, intimidating, and silencing those who oppose, and reveal the location of Khashoggi’s remains.
As the nation prepares to host the COP27 later this year, Egyptian officials have stepped up their effort to conceal their horrible record on human rights.
Egypt’s human rights crisis is characterised by institutionalised impunity for unlawful killings, torture, and enforced disappearances; mass arbitrary detentions; repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly; discrimination against women and girls, LGBTQ+ people, and members of religious minorities; and a crackdown on human rights NGOs through travel bans, asset freezes, and other harsh measures to quash civic activity. Egypt is still one of the biggest countries that receives long-term US military assistance, despite this.
Authorities recently freed dozens of political prisoners, but thousands continue to be arbitrarily detained, and arrests of peaceful opponents continue unabated. Amnesty International urges President Biden to pressure Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for significant and lasting human rights reforms, beginning with the immediate and unconditional release of all those arbitrarily detained solely for peacefully exercising their human rights or for discriminatory reasons.
