IPS News
By Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK, Sep 12 (IPS) - The George W. Bush administration and its closest ally in the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia, are facing scathing criticism from one of the world's leading human rights watchdogs for their covert support to the Pakistani government's continued crackdown on democracy activists.
Deploring the forced transfer of Nawaz Sharif, an opposition leader and former prime minister of Pakistan, to Saudi Arabia early this week, the influential Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the continuing U.S. acceptance of political repression is not only "unwise," but "wrong" as well.
"The U.S. is not immune to the fallout when two of its closest allies conspire to deny a political opposition leader the right to return to his country," said Ali Hasan, HRW's South Asia researcher.
Last Monday, when Sharif returned to Pakistan after seven years of exile, he was forcibly returned to the Saudi city of Jeddah by Pakistani authorities shortly after landing in the country. HRW said by doing so, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the United States' two closest allies in its so-called "war on terror", have "flouted" international law.
The group describes Sharif's forcible return as a violation of international law because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile," and that "everyone has the right to return to his country".
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