Basim sent me this: "Saudi Arabia has condemned
comments by Russia's human rights envoy on the situation in the kingdom as
"hostile" and an unjustified interference in the kingdom's internal affairs,
Saudi state media reported. Russian Human Rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov expressed "great concern"
about the situation in eastern Saudi Arabia following what he described as
clashes between law enforcement and peaceful demonstrators in which two people
were killed and more than 20 were wounded, according to the Russian Foreign
Ministry website.
The Saudi interior ministry has said there were no
clashes but that two people were killed by unknown assailants
last Sunday in the east, where the country's minority Muslim Shia population is
concentrated. Dolgov had said that people in the Eastern
Province of Saudi Arabia were protesting "against the existing, according to
their opinion, impairment of the rights of the Shi'ite community on the part of
the authorities of the Kingdom".
Here is the statement from a Saudi Foreign
Ministry source as reported by TASS:
"The Government of the Kingdom sees this
statement as hostile and would like to remind to the Russian representative,
that the Saudi authorities have always respected and tend to
respect international rules, sovereignty and independence of states,
and also have refrained and desist from interfering with their internal affairs,
including those of Russia," the SAP quotes a high-ranking source at the Foreign
Ministry of Saudi Arabia as saying.
"
