LONDON: Arab ambassadors canceled a reception at next week’s Labour party conference after claiming that Saudi and Sudanese representatives were barred from attending.
The row comes just days before Labour party members gather in Brighton.
In a letter sent to all UK MPs on Thursday, The League of Arab States said: “Unfortunately, the Council of Arab Ambassadors has taken the decision to cancel its annual reception and buffet dinner and boycott the Labour Party conference this year, due to the rejection of the application of both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Sudan to attend the conference.”
The reception is an annual event and is usually hosted by the Council of Arab Ambassadors, including all Arab ambassadors in the UK.
The Arab Ambassadors meet regularly to discuss Arab-British relations.
A Labour spokesperson confirmed in a statement to Arab News that its national executive committee had refused to accept the Saudi Embassy’s application to attend the event because of the country’s military campaign in Yemen.
But there was confusion over whether Sudan had applied to attend the event. While the Arab League claimed Sudan’s application was rejected, Labour said it was not received.
The Embassy of Sudan was not immediately available for comment.
However, an embassy spokesman was quoted by Al-Hayat saying: “The Labour Party decision is part of a clear pattern of double standards and the Arab decision was taken unanimously.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is known for his hostile stance toward Saudi Arabia, has publicly called for the UK to stop selling arms to the Kingdom, most recently in an interview with the BBC on Sept. 11.
He told the World At One that the UK should stop supplying weapons that are being used in the war in Yemen.
“We are selling arms to Saudi Arabia — and at the same time we are sending aid in, we should not be doing both,” he said.
He added it was it was important to ensure there was “a political process to bring about a cease-fire”.
Labour’s annual conference — which is expected to be its biggest ever — is being held from Sept. 24 over four days at the Brighton Center.
Arab League to boycott Labour conference over Corbyn snub
Arab League to boycott Labour conference over Corbyn snub
Palestinian NGO condemns Israeli act of ‘revenge’ after prisoner abuse video
- A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison.
Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.
They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.
The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.
“This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees,” Abdallah al?Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told AFP on Saturday.
“Everything Ben Gvir and the far?right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps — it also impacts the global legal and human rights system,” he added.
Ben Gvir, known for his inflammatory rhetoric, is considered one of the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
“It is simply a source of pride — arriving at a prison like this, a prison for terrorists, the vilest of the vile, seeing them like this,” Ben Gvir said in the video.
“I want one more thing: to execute them — the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday said the remarks were “a new war crime and a blatant challenge to international humanitarian law regarding prisoners.”
International rights groups have repeatedly warned of alleged abuse and mistreatment inflicted in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.
