Why is Dominic Raab calling out China on human rights abuses, but giving the Saudis a free pass?

It's convenient for the British foreign secretary to highlight the brutal treatment of China's Muslim Uighurs just as the UK is suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and banning Huawei

They’re two countries with some of the worst human rights records in the world, particularly with regard to the persecution of minority groups. China and Saudi Arabia are both repressive regimes which equate peaceful political activities with terrorism, using public protests as an excuse for brutal crackdowns. Along with Iran, they were responsible for executing more people in the world in 2019 than anyone else. So why has Dominic Raab decided only to “call out” China for “gross, egregious human rights abuses” which are “deeply, deeply troubling”?

Yes, it’s convenient for the British foreign secretary to highlight the brutal treatment of the country’s Muslim Uighur community just as the UK is suspending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong over Beijing’s “imposition” of a new national security law. Throw in Britain’s decision to ban Chinese technology giant Huawei at Donald Trump’s behest and you’ve got a hat-trick of reasons why this is “Bash Beijing Week”.

Mr Raab, of course, is quite right to condemn the forced sterilisation and re-education of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang province. Human rights abuses in China have been brushed under the carpet for far too long by politicians like him afraid of falling out with the communist rulers and their economic powerhouse. But the Saudi Arabia regime is no better with its campaign to forcibly disperse people of al-Awamiyah from land in the east of the country which they’ve been on for centuries.

The use of a counter-terrorism court to target the Shia minority there was one of the reasons given by Amnesty International for a record number of executions in the desert kingdom last year. Of those currently on death row, 13 were still children when their alleged crimes were committed. Charges against more than 100 youths have included “participating in demonstrations”, “disobeying the ruler” and “questioning the integrity of officials and the judicial system”. Hardly the actions of hardened terrorists.

Mujtaba al-Sweikat was just 17 when he was detained at Dammam airport preparing to board a flight to begin his studies at Western Michigan University. During his interrogation he was hung by his hands, beaten on the soles of his feet, stubbed with cigarettes and left in a freezing cell after a bucket of cold water had been poured over him. Eventually the teenager confessed to running a chat group on his Blackberry phone to help organise protests and throwing Molotov cocktails. But his father said he had turned up at just two demonstrations, staying no more than five minutes at each.

Mujtaba was one of 37 people executed in a single day in April last year. The youngest was Abdulkareem al-Hawaj, who as a 16-year-old had been accused of joining him in protests which turned violent in the Shia city of Al-Awamiyah. The Saudi authorities claimed the teenagers’ admissions amounted to the formation of a ‘terror cell’, but the United Nations said there was no evidence for this, apart from confessions obtained under torture.

When Dominic Raab visited Saudi Arabia in March he was urged by the human rights charity, Reprieve, to raise the cases of three other youngsters currently on death row for taking part in protests while two of them were aged 17 and one 15. But he failed to do so.

Are their cases not also “deeply, deeply, troubling” - or is it simply the case that he does not want to fall out with a regime with whom we have traded £15bn worth of arms in five years, and are about to start selling to again following the end of a court ban over their use in the Saudi war in Yemen which has left 100,000 dead and 13 million on the brink of famine?

The appalling treatment meted out to the Shia minority in Saudi Arabia is just as much a “gross, egregious, human rights abuse” as what is happening to Uighur Muslims in China. As if to prove the point that the Chinese and Saudi governments, as well as being repressive in the same way, also use the same excuses for their appalling behaviour, Beijing’s foreign minister Wang Wenbin has declared the Xinjiang issue is “not about human rights, religions, or ethnic groups at all, but about combating, violence, terrorism and separatism”.

Terrorism - that stigmatising catch-all term used by brutal regimes to justify their repression of men, women and children.

Anthony Harwood is a former foreign editor of the Daily Mail