News – Middle East: The international human rights organization Freedom Forward has launched a petition calling for a global boycott of what it described as the dictators who rule the UAE and Saudi Arabia against the backdrop of human rights crimes and the bloody war in Yemen.

"The time has come for a global boycott of the dictators who rule the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," read a petition submitted to the popular vote by the organization.

The organization highlighted that the boycott is a powerful tool to hold tyrants and human rights abusers accountable. When enough people demand change, global powers are forced to take notice. Dictators in the UAE and Saudi Arabia committed many crimes, they starved and massacred thousands in Yemen, they used torture and imprisoned peaceful activists, and they made the climate crisis worse with their exports of fossil fuels.

It referred to the role of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in pushing the Yemeni people into a humanitarian crisis in their war on the country and their perpetration of massive human rights violations and war crimes, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war and the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have bombed and killed tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians in airstrikes, using jet fuel and weapons provided by the United States, Britain and other Western governments.

The United Nations has reported that nearly 14 million people in Yemen, half of the country's total population, are now facing pre-famine conditions. Perhaps 85,000 children in Yemen have died of starvation since the Saudi-led coalition began its military intervention in 2015. The petition urged civil society organizations and people of conscience around the world to help end this crisis for the Yemeni people by pressuring governments to impose embargoes and sanctions on the ruling monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, including the ruling institutions, financial properties and global investments.

It called on people of conscience around the world to push all private companies, organizations and other entities in their countries to abandon Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and cut all economic ties with the ruling families of these countries.

The petition expressed solidarity with many residents and citizens of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “who have also suffered greatly from these governments’ human rights violations and repressive policies.”

It stressed that these non-violent punitive measures must be maintained until Saudi Arabia and the UAE end their starvation, destroy Yemeni society, and embrace basic principles of universal human rights for all people. It stated that the ruling families in Saudi Arabia and the UAE must: 

- Stop their disastrous war in Yemen and put an end to the use of starvation and famine as a weapon of war. 

- Pay full compensation to all Yemenis and other peoples who suffered from their brutal war in Yemen.

- Respect the full human rights of all people living in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.