Saudi Arabia has called the United Nations to focus on ‘eliminating Islamophobia’ as an outworking of tackling online racism and xenophobia.
Meshaal Bin Ali Al Balawi, Saudi’s Head of Human Rights at the United Nations Mission in Geneva, addressed the Human Rights Council, flagging the internet as a ‘space for practicing racism’ as he called for the UN to work towards finding a ‘solution’. The Saudi leader stated that the world needs to ‘prohibit racial discrimination in all its forms’.
Al Balawi went on to explain that, in Saudi Arabia, ‘spreading ideas based on racial discrimination and inciting racism and hatred using information technology … is a crime, whose perpetrator is punished according to the laws of the kingdom’. Penalties include imprisonment, substantial fines up to $133,000 (£102,900; €113,360) or both.
