UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on Saudi Arabia to urgently clarify information about arbitrary killings and ill-treatment of migrants at its borders. Türk explained that governments employ deceptive policies and disinformation tactics with the help of new technologies to produce falsehoods and misleading information to sow chaos, and confusion and deny reality.
In his opening speech for the 54th session of the Human Rights Council on September 11, 2023, Türk considered that development issues underlie the challenges facing the world. He stated that people have the right to a decent standard of living, including food, medical care, education, and economic opportunities, as well as freedom in personal choices and fair systems that ensure their rights. He emphasized that to ensure all of this, people need active and purposeful participation in decisions, and governments should serve these needs.
The High Commissioner stressed that every development goal is based on equality and human dignity, which requires accountable institutions, the rule of law, and a vibrant civil society.
Türk considered that civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, along with the right to development and the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, are all interconnected. This signifies the indivisibility and interconnectedness of human rights.
The European Saudi Organization for Human Rights points out that with the start of the 54th session of the Human Rights Council, the crackdown on activists and defenders in Saudi Arabia continues through arrests and travel bans, which leads to their absence from the council's discussions. Therefore, ESOHR sees Türk's call for clarifications regarding the killing of Ethiopian migrants in the context of the absence of any role for civil society, preventing access to information from independent sources or a genuine investigation into what happened.