Saudi Arabia is not the only country with a dreadful record on human rights. In the Middle East alone, there is Iran, which hanged nearly 700 people in the first six months of this year, some for the supposed crime of “Enmity to God”. Pakistan is distinguished by the cruelty of its blasphemy law, which allows disputes among neighbours to escalate to judicial murder. Bahrain has violently suppressed its Shia citizens. Qataris have been said to be among the most enthusiastic funders of violent jihad.
But even in this company there is something altogether special about Saudi Arabia. The mass execution of prisoners is not, sadly, without precedent. Iran did something similar after the revolution. Nonetheless, the Saudi decision to execute more than 50 supposed “terrorists” to discourage Isis is pretty shameless. Many appear to be young Shia men caught up in protests against discrimination last year.
No other country would propose to behead a young man, and then crucify his corpse upside down and in public – apparently as a punishment for being the nephew of a Shia religious leader. No other country would impose the grotesque sentence of 1,000 lashes for blog posts about God’s existence. No other country would impose a death sentence for atheism on a distinguished poet. Many of the atrocities which Isis performs for effect are in Saudi performed as routine. It is grotesque that the British government was proposing to cooperate with the Saudi ministry of justice, until pressure from Jeremy Corbyn, along with the opposition of Michael Gove, ended the shameful deal.
No one can doubt that torture is practised as a matter of routine by the Saudi security services. It feels cynical for the prime minister to point to the benefits of our craven attitude: Saudi intelligence, he told Channel Four news, had helped prevent a bomb attack in Britain. Similarly, Saudi corruption has enriched British arms companies, and kept British workers employed.
But there is a price we pay for this. Saudi propaganda, whether in mosques and madrassas or over the internet and the satellite channels, feeds a dangerous strain of Islam which does our country nothing but harm. Saudi weapons, some bought from Britain, are being used in a wicked and destabilising war in Yemen, which has so far killed thousands and made millions homeless. The bombing campaign mounted by the Saudis in Yemen far exceeds in indiscriminate brutality anything the west has inflicted on Isis. Even on the narrowest calculations of national interest, a country whose campaign of pointless destruction is making Yemen a safe place for Isis and al-Qaida is not on our side, even if it is formally reckoned as one of our allies.
The only justification for Cameron’s policy of “Don’t let’s be beastly to the Saudis” is that the collapse of the kingdom, if it ever comes, will be a catastrophe for the region and indeed the wider world. The one thing the Saudis have accomplished is stability and the anarchy that has engulfed some of their neighbours shows how valuable this one thing is. Yet stability cannot be the same as immobility. The kingdom must change if it is to avoid a catastrophic collapse. There are signs some of the younger royals understand this. But it won’t change without clear, principled and consistent criticism. This we should be happy to provide.
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