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RIYADH, April 16 (AFP)-Saudi Arabia will set up its own committees on human rights, said Saudi officials. They also ruled out a visit by Amnesty International, which has accused the kingdom of widespread abuse. Interior Minister Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, said to the official news agency SPA that the decision to set up a government panel, and an independent committee was made two years ago and it was not linked to Amnesty's charges. The decision will soon be formally announced,” Prince Nayef said, dismissing "the unjust campaign against the kingdom." Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, meanwhile, ruled out a visit by the London-based rights group and said the oil-rich country would stick to its legal system. "If Amnesty International was seeking the truth and if it informed itself honestly of the truth, we would consider a visit”, Prince Faisal said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais. "But so long as it continues to use erroneous information as its basis without taking into account our responses, such a visit would have no sense,” the foreign minister said. "We do not consider that we violate human rights, unless one thinks that such rights cannot be guaranteed in Saudi Arabia unless our laws are changed. Sorry, but we are not about to change our laws," said Prince Faisal. On Friday the interior minister said Saudi Arabia would continue to apply Shari’a, and insisted it did not violate human rights. "The respect of human rights is present in Islam and Shar’ia, and no other law on earth could be more just to man than Islam," Prince Nayef added. He also dubbed the March 28 Amnesty International report on alleged human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia as "clearly a tendentious campaign against Islam to misrepresent it." Amnesty accused Saudi Arabia of arbitrary arrests, torture and executions, the persecution of political opponents and religious minorities, along with cruel judicial punishments, including amputations. The kingdom, while rejecting the charges from the human rights organization, said it was ready for special reporters to visit to check on the independence of its judicial system. The Saudi government regularly imposes the death penalty on murderers; drug traffickers, rapists, armed robbers and those convicted of apostasy, and also orders the amputation of the hands – or sometimes feet – of convicted thieves.
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