Obama’s State Department Approves Saudi Beheaders as Human Rights Chair

State Department spokesman Mark Toner was pressed Tuesday to respond to the appointment of Saudi Arabia as chair of the Human Rights Council, even as that government announced it was about to behead another young Shia activist.

Faisal bin Hassan Trad, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, is now the chair of a panel of five ambassadors, known as the Consultative Group, which is part of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and which is responsible for choosing experts to report on human rights violations in countries across the world.

Toner claimed that he was unaware of the trial or planned execution of 21-year-old Muhammed al-Nimr, who had been detained since he was 17, but said that as for the Saudi appointment, “We would welcome it. We’re close allies.”

He then specifically refused to call for the beheading sentence to be commuted, by saying any decision like that should come at the end of a just legal process.

Question: “Would you welcome a decision to commute the sentence of this young man?”

Toner’s answer: “I’m not aware of the case, so it’s hard for me to comment on it other than that we believe that any kind of verdict like that should come at the end of a legal process that is just and in accordance with international legal standards.”