Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Welcoming the tyrant

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia should be arrested for human rights abuses, not feted at Buckingham Palace.

By Peter Tatchell
The Guardian

"Gordon Brown refuses to meet the Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. He says he wants to take a stand against tyranny. Yet the same Gordon Brown will happily embrace the Saudi dictator, King Abdullah during his state visit to Britain this week. Double standards or what?

The Killer King of the House of Saud is even more of a despot that President Mugabe, yet he will be feted by the prime minister at 10 Downing Street and he will stay with the Queen at Buckingham Palace as her honoured guest. Isn't it just a tad hypocritical for Gordon Brown to rage against one form of tyranny while embracing another?

Ooops, I forgot. Zimbabwe has no oil and it is not a huge purchaser of British-made weaponry. I guess that explains it all. The Killer King's visit is about business, very big business. And under Labour, as with their Conservative predecessors, money-making trumps human rights every time......."

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