“I will not stand by while people are beheaded” — John Key

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[hdrider]

double post = double bore !

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from The Dominion Post....

Making deals amid world of human rights abuses

EDITORIAL | 8:19AM - Friday, 01 May 2015


Prime Minister John Key meets His Royal Highness Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. — Photo: Chris Skelton/Fairfax NZ.

SAUDI ARABIA is a barbarous state where human rights are worth almost nothing.

Women are oppressed and do not even have the right to drive. The courts are fundamentalist death-and-flogging factories.

The country's capital punishment regime is one of the worst on earth, a medieval nightmare of beheadings in the marketplace and heads exposed on pikes.

Torture is routinely used against opponents of the regime, and liberal bloggers are flogged.

Our Prime Minister John Key knew he had to say something about human rights when he took a trade delegation there: critics at home would not let him say nothing.

Key is a pragmatist who wants a free-trade deal with the kingdom. But even he knows that Saudi riches are awash with blood.

Nobody knows what he said to the Saudis. He says he had “a really extensive conversation” about human rights with ruler King Salman.

His earlier remark that he hadn't raised women's right specifically had been misreported. After all, women's rights were human rights. He thinks the Kiwi delegation has done “a pretty darn good job”.



It's difficult to accept a politician's self-serving account of a conversation nobody else has heard, but perhaps Key did more than just mumble a few safe platitudes.

In any case, the dilemma — how to scold a tyrant while pushing to get more of his money — seemed to vanish.

The Saudis seem in no rush to sign the stalled agreement, reportedly because rich Saudi investors are offended that we no longer send live sheep to the kingdom.

Some ask: why single out Saudi Arabia?

How much fuss has New Zealand made about its free-trade partner China, the greatest state killer in the world?

Does Wellington ever raise its concerns with the United States, another great executioner?

Did Key raise with Iraq its habit of judicial killings before agreeing to send our military mentors there?

The main reason Saudi Arabia's judicial slaughter has become awkward, in fact, is because of New Zealand's decision to join the fight against Islamic State.

There are uncomfortable parallels between the terrorist organisation and the Saudi kingdom, and Key's attempts to draw a distinction between them don't work.

Both torture and kill on a whim; both are fanatical organisations with no sense of human rights, fair trials and even common decency towards its enemies.

Key's argument that Saudi Arabia is an independent state with a legal and court system cuts no ice.

In this case the state is a tyranny and the court and legal system is a bloody farce.

Despite all this, the global fight against capital punishment is working and even Key's quiet efforts are part of a good and increasingly effective cause.

Forty years ago only 16 states did not practise the death penalty. Now 100 have abolished it and another 40 don't use it.

Even in the United States, the death penalty is dying out: 36 states don't use it. Countries who execute are also caught by their own contradictions.

Indonesia, which this week killed eight drug smugglers, appeals to other states not to kill Indonesian citizens.

Perhaps one day even Saudi Arabia will become civilised.

Related news story:

 • ‘Philosophical difference’ over death penalty, says John Key in Saudi Arabia

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/68164440/editorial-making-deals-amid-world-of-human-rights-abuses

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[reality]

.....Meanwhile ....in China....

Rates of execution

By the confirmed numbers, the rate of executions in China is higher than the United States and Pakistan, though Iran executes more prisoners per capita.
The number of executions has dropped significantly since the Supreme People’s Court regained the power to review all death sentences in 2007; for instance, the Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed 12,000 people in 2002, 6,500 people in 2007, and roughly 2,400 in 2013 and 2014.
Human rights groups and foreign governments have criticized China's use of the death penalty for a variety of reasons, including its application for non-violent offenses, allegations of the use of torture to extract confessions, legal proceedings that do not meet international standards, and the government's refusal to publish statistics on the death penalty

So do we stop trading and cut ties with China....seeing as they execute alot more people that Saudi

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

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[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[Crusader]

Is this a forum for grown ups or kids? I can't tell with all the cartoons.

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[reality]

kj..."The sooner we have a revolution and filth such as Selwyn Cushing and Ron Brierley are put up against a wall and shot (after first being tortured), the better society will be."

...I see you have changed your position on the death penalty and torture....not sure if it will be popular here though