Amnesty International Sued Britain for Arming Saudi Arabia

Yamanyoon

Amnesty International has announced that it will join the Human Rights Watch and Rights Watch UK this week in a new lawsuit against Britain’s continued export of arms to Saudi Arabia.

The lawsuit will be brought before the Court of Appeal in London to challenge the legitimacy of the UK government’s decision to issue arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia, despite the risk of using them for serious violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen.”

The Yemeni people are being killed and are at great risk of starvation because of the coalition’s ongoing campaign of bombardment, which is being contributed by British weapons and equipment,” said Lucy Claridge, Amnesty International’s Director of Strategic Litigation

Amnesty said more than 1,740 people have been killed and injured since the Saudi-led coalition entered the Yemeni conflict four years ago.

A few days ago, Britain’s House Committee on International Relations said Britain was breaking international law by selling arms to Saudi Arabia and demanded that some export licenses be suspended immediately.

The Commission on International Relations said it was very likely that the arms sold by the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia caused heavy casualties among civilians in Yemen.

The opposition Labor Party called for the suspension of all British arms sales to Riyadh because of the conflict in Yemen, but the conservative government led by Theresa May argued that it was in line with international humanitarian law, so the House of Lords International Relations Committee announced today that the government is on the wrong side of the law.

An Airbus source said Germany’s decision to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia prevented Britain from completing the sale of 48 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets to Riyadh and could delay possible deals of other weapons such as the A400M military transport aircraft.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have been waging a devastating war against the people of Yemen since March 2015, which has claimed the lives of thousands of children and women by its UK-made missiles conducted in Yemen.