Qatar's Sheikh Sultan bin Suhaim Al-Thani joins calls for meeting to end Gulf crisis

Arab News

September 19, 2017

Jeddah, Sept 19: A second member of Qatar’s ruling family has joined calls for a national meeting of Qataris to resolve the dispute with its Gulf neighbors.

In a televised address, Sheikh Sultan bin Suhaim Al-Thani repeated the plea made on Sunday by Sheikh Abdullah Al-Thani.

“Since the crisis started I have been living in Paris after I could no longer tolerate seeing strangers roaming our country and interfering in our affairs under the pretext of protecting us from our brothers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states,” Sheikh Sultan said.

“It is our national duty now to unite and stand together to purge the country of them.”

Because of mistakes made by the Qatari government, he said, “I have all fears that the Qatari identity will be linked to terrorism.”

The sheikh is the son of Qatar’s foreign minister from 1972 to 1985, Sheikh Suhaim bin Hamad Al-Thani, a noted reformer who helped Qatar resolve many disputes.

Sheikh Sultan said he was saddened to see the Qatari government incubating terrorist organizations and giving them shelter and a platform for their deviant and evil intentions.

“And in that regard I am totally supportive of Sheikh Abdullah Al-Thani’s call for a Qatari national meeting, and I hope that the rest of the ruling family and the country’s dignitaries will follow suit in order to immunize our country against the hateful.”

The dispute began in June, when the Anti-Terror Quartet comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic relations and imposed a trade and travel boycott over Qatar’s financing of terrorist groups and interference in its neighbors’ internal affairs.

On Sunday, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Thani urged the people of Qatar to be “the messengers of peace” in the crisis.

He said he felt pain at seeing the dispute going from bad to worse, and called for a meeting at Qatari national level to discuss a crisis “which we can no longer remain silent in.”

Sheikh Abdullah has been active in trying to resolve the crisis, and has met King Salman twice since it began. He obtained Saudi support to open borders during Hajj.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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