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THE Foreign Office rejected accusations yesterday that it put Britain’s allies ahead of human rights after Saudi Arabia was left off a list of countries to lobby against the death penalty.
Rights campaigners cried foul when the strategy document, first published in 2010, failed to include the Saudi government, which executed 47 people in one go last week.
But Westminster argued that the paper had long been out of date and that its 2015 Annual Human Rights Report already included Saudi Arabia.
“This document is a general policy guide from 2011, rather than a case-by-case list of countries where the death penalty is applied, hence why it also doesn’t include North Korea,” said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office.
“The government opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle and continues to raise concerns with the Saudi authorities at the highest levels.”
Campaigners were not appeased, particularly as the original death penalty lobbying strategy had been sidelined.
“With Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan all executing at a horrific rate, now is not the time for the UK to be abandoning its strategy on the death penalty,” said human rights group Reprieve’s Maya Foa.
“Taken alongside the decision to stop classifying serious human rights offenders such as Saudi Arabia as ‘countries of concern,’ this raises suspicions that a desire to avoid embarrassing Britain’s ‘allies’ has taken precedence over standing up for basic British principles.
“The government’s softly-softly approach to Saudi Arabia does not seem to be working — it is time for a rethink.”
