Silent on Saudi Arabia

Silent on Saudi Arabia:

Two of Saudi Arabia's most prominent human rights activists, Mohammed Fahd al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Hamed, were sentenced over the weekend to lengthy jail terms. As Ahmed al-Omran reports today for the Middle East Channel, the sentences were not a surprise (when I met him in January, Qahtani told me that they were inevitable), but the optics for American foreign policy are frankly appalling. Their sentencing was sandwiched between John Kerry's first visit to Riyadh as secretary of state and a visit by Attorney General Eric Holder. Neither appears to have publicly said anything whatsoever about this case nor about any of the massive human rights and democracy issues in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, or the rest of the GCC.