NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) held a protest rally condemning Saudi Arabia’s continued human rights violations at the University campus.
This was in response to the execution of 47 persons by the Saudi authorities, including Shia leader Sheikh Baqir Al-Nimr. He had raised a strong voice against human rights violation by the Saudi regime. In July 2012, he was shot, violently beaten and arrested. However, despite global protests, he was on January 2.
The protest was joined by students from both JNU and outside.Condemning the executions in Saudi Arabia, JNUSU President, Kanhaiya Kumar said that the students would continue to raise a voice against injustice and attacked the Saudi Arabia government for its tyrannical approach.Vice President JNUSU Shehla Tashid,while condemning the brutality of Saudi regime related it with the current situation in India where she said minorities were also under threat.Criticizing the West, she said that “the so called watchdogs of democracy have given a key post to Saudi Arabia at the United Nations Human Rights Council exposing their own hypocrisy”.
Gulzar Hussain, a research student at JNU, said “the chain of suppression unites people everywhere, irrespective of religion, sect or race etc”. Feroze Rabbani, a student at JNU, stressed that the issue in Saudi Arabia is not of sectarianism but the result of a systematic policy to hold on to absolute power, by a single family..
Paying tribute to Sheikh Al-Nimr, the students ended the protest by lighting candles in the memory of the human rights activist and cleric.