Newcastle City Council leader agrees to meet activists to discuss Saudi Arabia human rights abuses
Newcastle’s new council leader has agreed to meet with human rights activists from Saudi Arabia.
Karen Kilgour has confirmed that she will sit down with representatives from human rights organisation ALQST, which has been lobbying the council over the city's ties to the Gulf state following the Saudi Public Investment Fund-led takeover of Newcastle United in 2021. Saudi Arabia has been accused of trying to ‘sportswash’ its reputation and divert attention from human rights abuses, while Newcastle City Council itself has come under fire for seeking closer links to and investment from the Middle East nation since the change of ownership at St James’ Park.
After becoming council leader following Nick Kemp’s resignation in September, Coun Kilgour was asked for a meeting by activist Lina al-Hathloul, who visited the city last year ahead of the Saudi Arabian football team playing two matches in Newcastle. Having indicated that she could be open to such a conversation, without explicitly committing to it, in an interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) last month, the Labour councillor has now accepted Ms al-Hathloul’s invitation.
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Coun Kilgour, an ardent Magpies supporter and season ticket holder, said: “Like all Newcastle United fans, I absolutely condemn human rights abuses carried out in Saudi Arabia and all other countries across the world. Newcastle United is one of the great institutions of our city, it is part of the fabric of Newcastle and it plays a significant role in the lives of a huge number of residents.
“The two are entirely different entities and it is unfair that the football club bears the brunt of accusations levelled at the Saudi government. I have accepted an invitation to meet with Lina al-Hathloul to discuss her concerns and I look forward to a productive meeting.”
In her letter to the council leader last month, Ms al-Hathloul wrote that she would be “honoured to arrange a meeting with you and bring a delegation of young Saudi human rights defenders” to discuss the impact of Saudi Arabia’s sporting investments on Newcastle and how to “ensure that human rights remain at the forefront of the conversation”. Her sister, Loujain, was a key figure in the campaign to lift a ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia and was jailed under counter-terrorism laws, before being released from prison in 2021 under a travel ban preventing her from leaving the kingdom.
City bosses promoted Newcastle as the “gateway to Saudi” during a major UK trade mission to Riyadh earlier this year, while the LDRS has also reported how a cache of emails obtained by the NUFCFAS has also shown how council officials were seeking closer links with the country.
Speaking at a full council meeting last week, Coun Kilgour condemned “abhorrent” human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, but said it was unfair for NUFC fans to be held “somehow responsible” by opponents of the club’s ownership. She also repeated the council’s view that responsibility for challenging the Saudi leadership on human rights matters lies primarily with the UK Government, saying that “it is in Westminster where the influence lies to impact on domestic policy in Saudi Arabia, not here in Newcastle Civic Centre”.
Urging Coun Kilgour to accept Ms al-Hathloul’s invitation ahead of that meeting, NUFCFAS campaigner John Hird said that “generic and often vague commitments to human rights are not enough” and that the council needed to “sit down with some victims of the Saudi regime and hear directly from them what the council and the city can do to support them and make a difference”.