Saudi Arabia unlikely to cooperate over crush: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Massoud Shadjareh, from the Islamic Human Rights Commission, in London, to discuss the remarks by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on the necessity of the formation of a fact-finding committee over the recent crush in Mina, near the Saudi city of Mecca.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: So, the victims’ bodies have arrived in the capital, Tehran, and of course Iran is steadfast in the way it has dealt with the situation, saying at this point that a fact-finding committee needs to be assigned to find out exactly what has happened. The question is will Saudi Arabia cooperate with this committee once it goes into motion?

Shadjareh: Well, all the signs currently, since this very unfortunate incident, we have seen very little cooperation by the Saudi authorities. The reality is that they could have made this a much more smoother operation and deal with it in a much better way and be open and public about it. There is CCTV footage of the whole duration, all those could be made available and bodies should have been counted on the first day or the first couple of days and repatriated.

So, really, if what has happened up to now is an indication of what they are going to do from now on, I would say that we are not going to get much cooperation. We are going to have more of trying to bury the news and to hide the reality of what is taking place.

Press TV: As you mentioned, the fact that this news may get buried is what we want to prevent from happening. Even a fact-finding committee from Iran – although it is a very positive step – is missing. One aspect I would think and that is a legal entity to accuse Saudi Arabia were Saudi Arabia to obviously be in negligence in terms of the mismanagement. Shouldn’t a legal entity, a legal body be involved in this fact-finding committee or be related to it to enforce that?  

Shadjareh: Well, one would have hoped that that could be organized but the reality is that at the end of the day, the Saudis are going to hide behind their jurisdiction and not allow external bodies to investigate fully what is taking place and this is really extremely sad because the reality is that there are from time to time... mistakes happen and the fact of hiding your mistake, burying that news and then continuously, every couple of years, you go through the repeat of the same thing, which results in more and more people dying and perishing and their lives being destroyed and the lives of those who have been left behind, that is really the tragedy of this whole thing.

The fact is that we are not going to be able to find a solution without identifying what the problem was and what it seems to be very clear is that there is a little of incompetence in the way that the safety and security of the hujjaj were implemented and that is really a fact.

Now what was it? How we could prevent this, it is something that is absolutely essential and unless Saudi Arabia changes this bigotry and very arrogant position that they have taken, it is going to take it much more difficult but nevertheless I think what I am hearing, as you know, we have launched investigations ourselves, and the material that comes in it really highlights that this was one of the problems of crowd control rather than anything else and they totally seem to be incompetent to actually ensure the health and safety of the hujjaj.

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