New York Mayor Boycotts Saudi Summit Over Rights Issues
NEW YORK (Dispatches) – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is pulling out of a G20 world cities summit to be hosted by Saudi Arabia at the end of the month after rights groups called for a boycott.
De Blasio announced his withdrawal from the virtual summit in a statement on Thursday, citing ethical concerns, and urged other mayors to follow suit.
The New York mayor has criticized the kingdom in the past, once describing the Saudi-led war in Yemen as brutal and immoral.
A global coalition of 16 human rights groups, including Action Corps, CodePink, Freedom Forward, the Geneva-based MENA Rights Group, Just Foreign Policy and the London-based ALQST, launched a campaign earlier this week and by calling on mayors of some of the world’s biggest cities to boycott the Saudi summit.
Code Pink lauded de Blasio’s decision to skip the summit, urging other mayors to do the same.
"Just because the president and weapons manufacturers are complicit in the violence perpetrated by the Saudi monarchy doesn’t mean our cities need to be,” Code Pink Yemen campaign manager Danaka Katovich said in the email to NYC supporters.
"Yemen has endured over five years of air raids and blockade. As the suffering of Yemenis continues at the hands of MBS (Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman), no mayor should agree to participate in the summit.”
Riyadh’s Urban 20 (U20) summit is held as part of the kingdom’s chairmanship of this year’s G20. Among those invited, besides New York’s Bill de Blasio, are London mayor Sadiq Khan, Berlin mayor Michael Muller, and Paris’s Anne Hidalgo, as well as the mayors of Los Angeles and Madrid.
The U20 is being held on the second anniversary of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Istanbul Saudi consulate in October 2018.
The coalition said that Saudi Arabia, "as an absolute monarchy without any form of meaningful democratic representation, has a long record of silencing the very voices that are necessary for a meaningful global conversation”.
"Saudi Arabia’s brutal record has only intensified since Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince in 2017,” the letter read.
The coalition also calls on the kingdom to take immediate measures to end human rights violations, including pursuing real justice in the case of Khashoggi and releasing jailed activists.
Riyadh recently overturned five death sentences previously issued against the killers of Khashoggi in a final ruling that jailed eight defendants to between seven and 20 years.
None of the defendants were named and the final court ruling sparked an international outcry, with UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard and Khashoggi’s fiancée condemning the ruling.
"Human rights and civil society norms are under threat across the world,” the letter read.
De Blasio announced his withdrawal from the virtual summit in a statement on Thursday, citing ethical concerns, and urged other mayors to follow suit.
The New York mayor has criticized the kingdom in the past, once describing the Saudi-led war in Yemen as brutal and immoral.
A global coalition of 16 human rights groups, including Action Corps, CodePink, Freedom Forward, the Geneva-based MENA Rights Group, Just Foreign Policy and the London-based ALQST, launched a campaign earlier this week and by calling on mayors of some of the world’s biggest cities to boycott the Saudi summit.
Code Pink lauded de Blasio’s decision to skip the summit, urging other mayors to do the same.
"Just because the president and weapons manufacturers are complicit in the violence perpetrated by the Saudi monarchy doesn’t mean our cities need to be,” Code Pink Yemen campaign manager Danaka Katovich said in the email to NYC supporters.
"Yemen has endured over five years of air raids and blockade. As the suffering of Yemenis continues at the hands of MBS (Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman), no mayor should agree to participate in the summit.”
Riyadh’s Urban 20 (U20) summit is held as part of the kingdom’s chairmanship of this year’s G20. Among those invited, besides New York’s Bill de Blasio, are London mayor Sadiq Khan, Berlin mayor Michael Muller, and Paris’s Anne Hidalgo, as well as the mayors of Los Angeles and Madrid.
The U20 is being held on the second anniversary of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Istanbul Saudi consulate in October 2018.
The coalition said that Saudi Arabia, "as an absolute monarchy without any form of meaningful democratic representation, has a long record of silencing the very voices that are necessary for a meaningful global conversation”.
"Saudi Arabia’s brutal record has only intensified since Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince in 2017,” the letter read.
The coalition also calls on the kingdom to take immediate measures to end human rights violations, including pursuing real justice in the case of Khashoggi and releasing jailed activists.
Riyadh recently overturned five death sentences previously issued against the killers of Khashoggi in a final ruling that jailed eight defendants to between seven and 20 years.
None of the defendants were named and the final court ruling sparked an international outcry, with UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard and Khashoggi’s fiancée condemning the ruling.
"Human rights and civil society norms are under threat across the world,” the letter read.