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Press TV has conducted an interview with Colin Cavell, political commentator from West Virginia, about Amnesty International slamming Saudi Arabia for handing down a harsh verdict to a leading Shia cleric in the country.

Press TV: Does the Saudi royalty essentially fear clerics who speak the truth?

Cavell: They fear anyone who speaks the truth.

They fear anybody who calls for any type of democratic reform and that is why King Abdullah has issued an edict a few months ago that ‘we will jail anybody who calls for any new reform in the kingdom, who calls for any type of criticism against the ruling family.’

What Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amr has done is peacefully criticize and call for political reform in the kingdom and for that he gets jailed for eight years. This is atrocious. This is a crime against humanity.

Press TV: And yet Mr. Cavell, you know the United States stands by its Saudi ally, well you see its Saudi ally has been brought up time and again for its responsibility towards a human rights violations within their own country and obviously the spread of groups like ISIL and ISIS throughout the region as well?

Cavell: You are quite correct. What the Saudi government - these apostates who claim to be the custodian of the two holy mosques - they do not understand that Allah has given us all freedom of conscience.

Human beings are given a mind to think for themselves and because of that political power arises up from the people and not like the House of Saud claims that Allah has deemed them to be rulers in perpetuity forever in the Arabian Peninsula.

This is a false belief. This is the belief of apostates. Rather than being the custodian of the two holy mosques, they are the proverbial foxes guarding the henhouse. They are the wolves in the forest threatening everyone. They are the snakes in the pit.

Press TV: How serious and severe do you think the blowback will be from all of these Saudi oppression either within the country or outside?

Cavell: If there were publicized in the United States, there would be severe criticism, because such jailing of peaceful protest, of freedom of conscience, is intolerable in this country and that is why the United States keeps quiet that we are supporting a totalitarian dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.

This is one of the worst governments on the face of the earth. It is an autocratic monarchal regime that tolerates no democratic aspects of its culture at all and this is intolerable. It is a crime against humanity.

The United Nations should condemn the government, the regime of Saudi Arabia. This is a regime ruled by one family, the foxes guarding the henhouse.