RIYADH/PESHAWAR: Saudi Arabia denied on Tuesday claims by Pakistani activists that two transgender women from Pakistan were beaten to death in police custody after being arrested in Saudi Arabia along with more than 30 other members of the community.
Reports of the deaths had been carried in Pakistani media and decried in an activists’ media conference on Monday. However, a statement from the Saudi Interior Ministry early on Tuesday said the reports were “totally wrong and nobody was tortured.”
The ministry acknowledged that one Pakistani had died in custody after the arrests.
“One 61-year-old person suffered a heart attack and died in the hospital after being treated,” the Interior Ministry statement said.
“The Pakistani embassy looked into this case and another one. Procedures have started to send the body back to his country,” it said.
Saudi media reported last week that police had arrested around 35 people after they raided a party where men were dressed as women and were wearing make-up. The Saudi outlets did not use the word transgender, nor say anyone had been killed.
In Pakistan, transgender activist Farzana Riaz told a news conference on Monday that sources in the transgender community in Saudi Arabia had told her the two Pakistanis were beaten to death with sticks.
“We are deeply saddened by the deaths of these two innocent trans persons in Saudi Arabia,” Riaz, a leader of the group Trans Action Pakistan, said in Peshawar.
Riaz showed journalists several photos of those still in custody that she said had been sent to her by contacts in Saudi Arabia, along with messages sent via cellphone.
Qamar Naseem, a rights activist from the Blue Veins group, told the same news conference he had shared available information about the incident with members of Pakistan’s parliament.
The Pakistani Interior Ministry was not available for comment on Monday.
Saudi Arabia has no law against transgender people.
In Pakistan, transgender people are often shunned by their families and forced into begging or prostitution to support themselves.
Recently, however, a nascent transgender activist movement has gained attention and legal rights.
In January, a Pakistani court ruled that transgender people would be counted in the national census for the first time. In 2012, the Supreme Court declared equal rights for transgender citizens. They were guaranteed the right to vote a year earlier.
Saudi Arabia denies reports of transgender women killed by police
Saudi Arabia denies reports of transgender women killed by police
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
