This made me chuckle.

I par­tic­u­larly liked the line

Crit­ics have dis­missed the gath­er­ing as a pro­pa­ganda gim­mick by the Saudis who, they say, are not best placed to host a meet­ing on reli­gious tolerance.

Which might just be the under­state­ment of the week.

Turns out that the Sadui author­it­ies aren’t above per­se­cut­ing young men for behav­ing like young men any more than they are above oppress­ing women for being women.

Of course, there is still a dif­fer­ence; I doubt these men are going to be pub­licly beaten for their actions.

The recent ordeal (which I’ve blogged about here and here,) of a young woman who was sen­tenced to state-​​sponsored bru­tal­ity after being gang-​​raped is just one example of the shock­ing bar­bar­ity of the Saudi regime. It is unac­cept­able that the UK counts any nation with such a poor human-​​rights record as an ally, so please take a couple of minutes to sign this peti­tion urging our gov­ern­ment to sever friendly ties with Saudi Ara­bia until such a time as they join us in the 21^st Century.

The actual text you’ll be put­ting your name to is:

The gov­ern­ment have rolled out the Red car­pet to the Saudi Royal Fam­ily yet the gov­ern­ment of Saudi Ara­bia is an auto­cratic regime with an appalling human rights record. Exe­cu­tions, flog­ging and ampu­ta­tions are imposed and car­ried out with dis­reg­ard for the most basic inter­na­tional fair trial stand­ards. ‘Offences’ include being gay or being a woman unac­com­pan­ied by a man or driv­ing a car. Yet with utter hypo­crisy the UK gov­ern­ment con­demns sim­ilar regimes such as Burma and has very min­imal ties with coun­tries like Libya. The UK has turned a blind eye to this for its own selfish eco­nomic interests to the extent that we will break inter­na­tional law on cor­rup­tion to avoid upset­ting the Saudi Royal Fam­ily. As a con­sequence of this rela­tion­ship we are per­ceived as sup­port­ers and back­ers of this repress­ive regime. We have seen the con­sequences of these injustices on the secur­ity of our coun­try. It is now the oppor­tun­ity to restore Britain’s dig­nity and end this stain on our country’s reputation.

Last year I blogged about a Saudi woman who’d been gang raped, and then charged by the author­it­ies for being in the same car as a male friend who was not her hus­band (before the rape.) Ini­tially, she was sen­tenced to 90 lashes (yes, cor­poral pun­ish­ment.) She appealed that sen­tence (as well as the leni­ent sen­tences handed down on the rape gang.) Well, the appeal court has increased all the sen­tences. Not only have the rap­ists had their sen­tenced increased (as they should,) but so has their victim.

200 lashes and two years in prison for meet­ing a male friend. It’s back­wards, it’s bar­baric, and it’s a viol­a­tion of her human rights. And our gov­ern­ment tacitly sup­ports it because the big­oted des­pots in charge are our allies and sup­ply us with oil.