PARIS, 16 January 2003 — The French government has said that it firmly backs the decision by its embassy in Riyadh to refuse visas to the representatives of 13 Saudi charities who were to have taken part in an international conference on humanitarian assistance here last week.
“The decisions were taken for good reasons, and I don’t intend to debate the question any further with anybody,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau said.
He said the decision was taken in Paris, not, as previously reported, in Riyadh.
Rivasseau refused to comment on the claim by a journalist that only one of the applicants had previously had his visa application turned down, and that he had nevertheless been able to make his way later to the United States, where visa applications filed by residents of the Gulf have in recent weeks been passed over with a fine-tooth comb.
According to a communique issued by the Saudi participants who were banned from attending the Paris conference, the measures adopted against charitable organizations such as theirs were “discriminatory”, especially as they “sought to curtail humanitarian activities.”
They also “condemned the war mounted against some charity organizations in the name of the so-called war on terror.”
Addressing a press conference in Riyadh on Sunday, Saleh Al-Wohaibi, secretary-general of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), described the French move as “unacceptable.” He also noted that the visas were denied by the French Embassy “without any explanation.”
Speaking by teleconference from Paris during the packed press conference, Haitham Manna, spokesman of the Paris-based Arab Committee for Human Rights, condemned Paris for “acting under US pressure” in its decision to refuse visas to officials of the Saudi NGOs.
