Saudi Arabia drops made-in-Italy bombs on Yemen
Rights — di Mara Budgen
A shipment of bombs leaves Italy for Saudi Arabia on the very day the EU honours Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger arrested for exercising freedom of speech.
Saudi Arabia drops made-in-Italy bombs on Yemen
A shipment of bombs leaves Italy for Saudi Arabia on the very day the EU honours Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger arrested for exercising freedom of speech.
On 29 October a shipment of made-in-Italy bombs left Sardinia bound for Saudi Arabia. The report came from Amnesty International Italia, the organisation that has been fighting for the defence of human rights around the world for years. Amnesty called on the Italian government not to send weapons to Saudi Arabia because the country is engaged in a conflict in Yemen without any international authorisation. On the very same day the weapons were dispatched, the European Union decided to award the Sakharov Prize to blogger Raif Badawi for his commitment to defending freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia.
The Sakharov Prize, established in 1988, is awarded every year to recognise an individual's contribution to the fight for human rights around the world. Badawi has been in prison since 2012 for criticising the country's religious leadership and was convicted in 2014 for insulting Islam and apostasy carried out through his blog, Free Saudi liberals, where he called for greater freedom of expression while criticising certain Saudi religious figures.
In Saudi Arabia all citizens are required to practise Islam and freedom of religion is not guaranteed. The courts accordingly sentenced Badawi to ten years in prison and a thousand lashes. In January 2015 he received 50 lashes in public, in front of a mosque. His wife and three children received several death threats and were forced to flee to Canada.
The arms shipment departed from Cagliari's Elmas airport bound for the military base at Taif on the very day the prize award was announced. The Boeing 747 operated by Azerbaijani airline Silky Way was loaded with bombs that were in all likelihood manufactured at the plant of the German company Rmw in Domusnovas, near Ghedi. The aircraft departing from Sardinia and its explosive cargo were photographed by several people, including Senator Roberto Cotti, who shared the image on Twitter.
Ecco quello avviene adesso all'aeroporto civile di Cagliari-Elmas, si caricano.Forse avevano finito le munizioni
"We reiterate our call on the Italian government to suspend the sending of bombs and weapons to all countries militarily engaged in the conflict in Yemen." This was the appeal from the Rete italiana per il disarmo, Amnesty International Italia and the Osservatorio permanente sulle armi leggere e politiche di difesa e sicurezza (Opal) of Brescia. There is indeed evidence that ordnance originating from Italy has been used in the military confrontation pitting the Houthi Shia rebels against forces loyal to the government of Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi in Yemen.
Almost six thousand people have been killed in the Yemeni conflict since March. Half of them are civilians, killed largely by military air strikes conducted by the Saudi-led coalition. More than 15 million people are in need of assistance, according to the United Nations.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the bombardments, which struck, among other things, a hospital belonging to Medici senza frontiere in Yemen's Sa'dah province on 28 October, and urged all parties to the conflict to respect international conventions on the protection of civilians.
Add your signature to Amnesty International's petition calling on the Italian government not to transfer weapons to the countries bombing Yemen.