Rice criticises Saudis on rights, gets firm rebuff

RIYADH (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticised Saudi Arabia’s record on democratic reform and the jailing of three activists but was firmly rebuffed Tuesday by Washington’s staunch Middle East ally.
“The row is really meaningless,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal told a post-midnight news conference after Rice conferred with him and the country’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah.

“The assessment that is important for any country in the development of its political reform is the judgement of its own people,” Prince Saud said. “And that is, in the final analysis, the criteria that we follow.” Rice flew into Riyadh on the fourth leg of a regional swing after delivering a major speech in Cairo calling for sweeping democratic change and naming Saudi Arabia as one of the states still lagging.

Addressing 600 Egyptian officials, scholars and students at Cairo’s American University, she praised the “brave citizens” in Saudi Arabia who are “demanding accountable government.”

“Some first steps toward openness have been taken with recent municipal elections,” the chief US diplomat said. “Yet many people still pay an unfair price for exercising their basic rights.”

“Three individuals in particular are currently imprisoned for peacefully petitioning their government — and this should not be a crime in any country.”

She was referring to three activists sentenced to between six and nine years in prison in May on charges of demanding a constitutional monarch in the ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom.

Ali Al Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed and Matruk Al Faleh were found guilty of “using Western terminology” in formulating their demands. They also allegedly questioned the king’s role as head of the judiciary. The trio were the last activists held out of a dozen people arrested in March 2004. The three planned to lodge an appeal of their case Tuesday in a Riyadh court, a lawyer and one of their wives said. The State Department had already registered concern over the fate of the activists and Rice said she raised the matter in her talks late Monday with the Saudi leadership.

“We will continue to follow the progress of this case, we think it is an important case,” she said. “The petitioning of the government for reform should not be a crime.”

But Prince Saud said he told Rice the prisoners had broken a law. “They are in the hands of the court. The government cannot interfere until the court action is taken in this regard.”

Critics have accused the administration of President George W. Bush of going easy on the autocratic Saudi government because of its roles as a key player on oil markets and a valuable ally in the war on terror.

Rice’s comments in Cairo were among the more forthright US statements on Saudi shortcomings, but she toned down her apppeal for reform as she stood alongside Prince Saud at the Riyadh news conference.