Raw Story informs us that this Amnesty report was released as the UN Human Rights Council convened in Geneva to discuss the human rights record of the oil kingdom.
It also comes after Saudi Arabia refused to
take a seat for two-years at the UN Security Council after it was selected.
Amnesty says that in Saudi Arabia at present there is “an ongoing crackdown including arbitrary arrests and detention, unfair trials, torture and other ill-treatment over the past four years.”
BBC News also quotes part of the report which says that promises made by Saudi Arabia in the past to review its human rights record and take steps to improve it was “nothing but hot air.”
Philip Luther of Amnesty's Director of Middle East and North Africa explained that, “Four years ago, Saudi Arabian diplomats came to Geneva and accepted a string of recommendations to improve human rights in the country. Since then, not only have the authorities failed to act, but they have ratcheted up the repression.”
The report also refers to a “new wave of repression against civil society” that has been in play since the beginning of the Arab Spring in early 2011.
