Saudi Arabia

It's absolutely despicable and the thought that we consider this country as our "ally", and sell arms to it, repels me.

I agree with the various measures being taken by some individuals and organisations to boycott Brunei's various business holdings due to its re-introduction of barbaric laws, but I wish similar measures were put forward to isolate Saudi Arabia too.

Well I wish he’d hold Camilla hostage until she coughed up that hideous jewellery to add to his depleted coffers.

SAis already facing financial problems and the money - and oil - is running out. There are so many and bigger oil producers in the world that the days when OPEC under the leadership of Saudi could hold the world to ransome and control prices has long gone.

Why do you think that one of the first actions of the Crown Prince, when he began to wield power was to lock up all the richest movers and shakers in the Royal Family in the local Hilton until they coughed up many billions of £, described as unpaid taxes, in ransom payments for their freedom?

Read about the young men, including the one in GG's link (so very young, still boys to me) executed, forced confessions under torture, they hadn't really done anything wrong, taking part in demonstrations, or something completely innocuous. Just hideous in the harshness of the sentence, and if it isn't bad enough beheading someone, they then crucify the remains in some cases. Too barbaric for words.

Thanks for that Whitewave.

maddy the vast majority of out oil comes from Norway. By a huge amount more than SA.

I too think we shouldn’t trade with Saudi Arabia until such time as they stop some their particularly abhorrent practices. If no pressure is ever brought to bear, where is the incentive to stop? I remember back in the 70s I didn’t buy anything which came from South Africa because I believed apartheid was/is wrong. However, the fact that South African goods were in the shops showed that as a country we still traded when them. It seems somewhat more complicated with Saudi, when I fill my car, I don’t know where the petrol originated, unlike the fruit in the 70s, which had the country of origin plainly in sight. Since I also don’t sell weapons, I feel that there’s little I/we can do, the changes and pressures have to come the from big boys, ie the government, banks, manufacturers of weapons etc. Only then might we see change.

But I still feel that if these awful things were reported more widely, the general public would be properly aware, and just maybe, their revulsion of such events might bring pressure on our government.

Thanks Gonegirl, I’ve just done that.

GG54 - we could all look up the meaning of altruistic but I for one would like to know your definition.

EllenVannin - those atrocities that you mention are crimes in the UK. Many of them are committed across borders and solving them will prove to be more difficult should we leave the EU because co-operation is likely to be one of those things (like so many others) that will become more difficult.

At least they will be absolutely stuffed when we in the West change to electric cars. Roll on.

If you contact HQ maddyone they would probably change the heading of this thread.

absolutely sickening

We should break off all ties to such a barbaric country, even if it does mean loss of some security intelligence. And it will. But we should suck it up.

Read this and feel free to throw up - preferably over the nearest member of the RF

www.standard.co.uk/news/camillas-rubies-the-saudi-prince-and-a-very-peculiar-protocol-7264942.html

I agree - and as well as this, I’m following in the Guardian the continuing plight of the young women protesters in SA who are in prison and possibly being tortured. I remember when the driving ban was ‘lifted’ and some GNers were quite frankly politically naive enough to think this was the dawn on a new era. Instead the young women who led the protests are some of these now in prison. The Guardian writer says it’s very important to the regime that protest is seen not to work and that any changes are seen as a gift from the regime.

I like others am sickened by our relationship with SA and that’s before I start on about Yemen. What a grubby dirty little country we sometimes are. And the royal family, especially Camilla I believe, has dirty grubby gifted Saudi jewellery in her collection. Yuk

We only import a very tiny amount of oil from SA. We can very easily switch to another country.

Just like our trade with the EU we trade most with our nearest neighbour Norway. It would only amount to a tiny bit more from them.

I cannot understand why we continue to trade with this barbaric kingdom - and getting worse. The current young man in in charge is well on the path to being an absolutist dictator, a psychopath utterly indifferent to other people.

I know the great cry will come up about British jobs, sales of technology etc etc But surely the death of Jamal Khashoggi and these executions surely must make the government take pause for thought. How many deaths must we countenance before we say enough is enough. One death per British job, 2 deaths per British job .........10 deaths per British job?

The above was to Whitewavemark2 and Anja.

I suppose you use petrol...and it's derivatives.
Why buy from a country which, as you mention, kills children?

Whatever happens, we mustn't interfere. How others rule their countries and its peoples has nothing to do with us.

I'm only interested in what goes on under our own noses in this country----such as slavery, exploitation, grooming of young innocents for sex or wars against religion etc etc.
Do other countries come to our aid in stopping these odious crimes ?

We trade with other countries which sell arms to SA.
There is no difference.

They weren't sold with that in mind Whitewavemark2

I'm sure that you can Google the reasons Anja however I'm sure that someone of your intelligence already knows the answer.

Altruism and arms seem very strange bedfellows.

Selling a country bread or medicine with whom we disagree politically is in my view perfectly acceptable. Selling them arms and instruments of torture to use on innocent children and individuals and then lining my pockets with this blood money is not acceptable.

And what ‘altruistic’ reason would that be GabbyG?

Whitewavemark2
The reason we sell arms was for a very altruistic reason. Their reasons for killing these men were nothing to do with us selling them arms.
We still trade with other countries with whose practices we disagree.
If we withheld sales of everything we trade to countries whose morals and practices disgust us, we'd do little to no business.