Monday 1 July 2019 – During the 41st session of the Human Rights Council, Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) delivered an oral intervention during Item 3 General Debate on the Promotion of All Human Rights. In the intervention, ADHRB raised concerns over the violations of economic rights by the Saudi Arabia-led intervention in Yemen. Continue reading for the text of the intervention, or click here for a PDF.
IDO, together with the European Center for Democracy and Human Rights and Arabian Rights Watch Association, express our continued deep dismay about the ongoing systematic violations of economic rights by the Saudi Arabia-led intervention in Yemen.
Despite being informed two years ago by the U.N. Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy that “[t]he blockade imposed by the Saudi Coalition involves grave breaches of the most basic norms of human rights law, as well as the law of armed conflict,” the Saudi Coalition backed Hadi government continues with definitive knowledge and intent, triggering the World’s worst humanitarian crisis. Despite being informed by the Group of Eminent Experts who concluded that “no possible military advantage could justify such sustained and extreme suffering of millions of people, the Coalition has failed to cancel or suspend the restrictions, as required under international law.”
Protecting the Yemeni economy is an objective that all parties should strive for given that its decline and potential collapse will affect civilians in all governorates, civilians who must be spared the horrors of a war they cannot impact the outcome of.
Mr. President,
Unlawful airstrikes on civilian targets must end and the unlawful de facto blockade must be lifted. The payment of public sector salaries and continued payment of pensions to all is of critical importance to alleviating the humanitarian suffering faced by millions and should not be used as a weapon of war against them.
