Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am surprised that while at the ASEM conference the Taoiseach did not discuss the disaster that is unfolding in Yemen. It begs the question generally about whether European leaders and leaders of other governments around the world are willing to call out the Saudi regime for imposing a brutal blockade on the people of Yemen, which has brought between 11 million and 17 million people to the brink of starvation, with at least 10,000 killed directly. Save the Children estimate that 50,000 children died in 2017 as an indirect consequence of the blockade.

We must also consider what is happening in Saudi Arabia itself. There was the barbaric killing of Jamal Khashoggi who was dismembered and, we think, dissolved in acid. In the past few weeks, we heard that some women activists who campaigned for the right of women in Saudi Arabia to drive have been imprisoned. Amnesty International recently produced a report on the routine sexual harassment, torture and degradation of civil rights activists, including hanging prisoners from the ceiling and sexual tormenting of women prisoners by people wearing face masks. Three activists who had just received the alternative Nobel prize in Stockholm have been imprisoned for between ten and 15 years for crimes such as "disobeying the ruler" and "harming the reputation of the State", "engaged in peaceful protests where they criticised the Government". Europe, America and this country continue to treat the regime there as if it is some sort of normal regime. It is a vile and vicious regime that is doing appalling things, and the world is sitting by with Europe and America selling them guns. At least Senator Bernie Sanders has tabled a motion this week in the US Senate calling for an end to the support by the US of Saudi Arabia in this horrific war in Yemen. What are we doing about these people? What is going on is barbaric. It needs to be called out and sanctions are needed.

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