https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/9/g20-hold-saudi-arabia-accountable-for-abuses-hrw-says
The G20, a group with 20 of the world’s largest economies, was recently asked to hold Saudi Arabia accountable of the abuses against the human rights council going on in their country. Saudi Arabia has been violating the rules for the council for quite some time and other countries want to hold them accountable as well as have them take responsibility. Some of the abuses that have taken place are jailing and harassing public dissidents and human rights activists, unlawful attacks on civilians in Yemen, and ignoring international calls for accountability for the murder by state agents of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The murder of Khashoggi happened over 2 years ago and there has been no actions or accountability taken against the officials involved. Saudi Arabia has been covering up these abuses by spending billions on entertainment, cultural and sporting events so people will see them as a place for several big entertainments instead of all the corrupt actions happening within the country.
This is important because in another article I wrote it was talking about how many of the countries in the human rights council wanted Saudi Arabia out because they have been found to violate many of the councils rules and how them being in the council could cover those violations up. If Saudi Arabia doesn’t hold those accountable to these violations and make an effort to stop them they could have more people commit these actions knowing they won’t be held responsible. These wrong actions against innocent people in their country and other countries will just go on and continue to grow, unnoticed and hidden.
In class we recently talked about the security dilemma, which is when a country or states actions to ensure their own security threatens the security and well being of other countries/states. In a way, I could say Saudi Arabia is in a security dilemma along with Yemen. One of the abuses I listed above was unlawful attacks on civilians of Yemen. Saudi Arabia, by protecting their own skin and covering up these unlawful attacks, would pose a threat to Yemen’s civilians. Going back to what I said earlier, covering up these attacks would just make it easier for them to keep occuring, putting the safety of Yemen civilians in jeopardy. Saudi Arabia needs to hold those accountable for these actions so that they can become a safer, more reliable country.