Strong Protests Against Removal of Saudi Arabia from UN Blacklist

Several human rights organizations have strongly condemned the United Nations' decision to remove Saudi Arabia from the blacklist of child rights violators. A previous UN report stated that the Saudi-led military coalition was responsible for 60% of child deaths in Yemen over the past year. However, just days after the report was published, a spokesperson for the UN announced on Monday, June 7, that the coalition's name had been removed from the list for further investigations. Following this event, Human Rights Watch sharply criticized Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, accusing him of 'political fraud' and claiming that he acted in response to Saudi protests, suddenly changing his position. According to a report by the British newspaper The Guardian, Amnesty International also condemned the UN's decision, describing it as a 'clear concession' to Saudi Arabia and emphasizing that such an action undermines the credibility of the UN. Another example of this criticism came from the charity and relief organization Oxfam, which stated that the UN's decision to deny its previous report constitutes a 'moral failure.' The UN report indicated that during the Saudi-led military coalition's attacks in Yemen, 510 children had been killed and 667 others injured. However, the Saudi representative at the UN dismissed these figures as exaggerated and insisted that the coalition's name should be removed from the blacklist of child rights violators. He also deemed the report a negative factor for peace talks in Yemen. In response to these protests, the UN spokesperson announced that the Secretary-General agreed to Saudi Arabia's proposal for a joint review of the documents and evidence presented in the report regarding child casualties in Yemen, and until the results of this investigation are announced, the coalition's name would be removed from the report's appendix.