Rights Advocates Question UN's Partnership with MBS-Led Foundation
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Rights groups have condemned the United Nations for its decision to help rehabilitate Mohammed bin Salman by co-hosting an event next month with a foundation led by the Saudi crown prince, almost a year after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The UN's youth envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, plans to set up a workshop for 300 young people on September 23 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly with the Misk Foundation, the Saudi prince's private cultural organization, the Middle East Eye reported.
The event is to take place only 10 days before the one-year anniversary of Khashoggi's murder on October 2, 2018, when Saudi government agents killed and dismembered the Washington Post journalist inside the country's consulate in Istanbul.
Late last year, the CIA determined that bin Salman, known as MBS, had personally ordered the assassination.
"The UN shouldn't be rewarding this behavior with such partnerships," Joyce Bukuru, an advocacy officer for Human Rights Watch (HRW), said.
Bukuru said the UN should not be promoting MBS, and noted that the young prince had overseen both the killing of Khashoggi and the abuses of the Yemen war, as well as a "vicious domestic repression campaign that includes the alleged torture of women's rights activists".
The event, dubbed the Misk–OSGEY Youth Forum, was billed as promoting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on environmentalism and good governance.
Mandeep Tiwana, a program officer for the Civicus rights group, said the UN's decision to partner with the Saudi government to elevate youth involvement in the SDGs internationally is "disturbing".
"Young people in Saudi Arabia are completely denied the right to join their counterparts around the world in public mobilizations for gender equality and climate justice, which are key elements of the SDGs."
A spokesman from Wickramanayake's office said, "The youth forum is designed to bring together young leaders, creators and thinkers with global innovators to discuss how to lead the way in transforming the purpose of business."
The four-hour event will be held at the New York Public Library at the same time US President Donald Trump and other world leaders are scheduled to attend a climate summit at the start of the annual UN General Assembly.
The Misk–OSGEY Youth Forum will feature Dr Reem Bint Mansour Al-Saud, a Saudi princess and member of Riyadh's delegation to the UN in New York, who advocates for sustainable development and gender equality in the Persian Gulf kingdom.
Other speakers include Alexandra Cousteau, an environmentalist and granddaughter of renowned French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau; Bart Houlahan, an entrepreneur who promotes sustainable business practices, and Paul Polman, former CEO of consumer goods firm Unilever.
In three successive sessions called "redefine", "empower" and "change", the speakers will encourage the group of young people from around the world to launch their own sustainable businesses to benefit the wider community.
Khashoggi, a US-based journalist who frequently criticized the Saudi government, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was collecting papers so he could get married.
In June, UN expert Agnes Callamard issued a report that described the assassination as a "deliberate, premeditated execution", and called for MBS and other top Saudi officials to be investigated.
Saudi officials, who initially insisted that Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, now say the journalist was killed in a rogue operation in which MBS was not involved.
In the weeks after the murder, events linked to the Misk Foundation in New York were canceled as the Brooklyn Museum, Columbia University and other institutes distanced themselves from Riyadh.
