UN rights envoy arrives in Saudi Arabia

The United Nations' special human rights envoy Dato Param Coomarasawamy has arrived in Saudi Arabia on an unprecedented visit.

This is the first time the Saudi Kingdom has allowed entry to the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judiciary, according to Saudi officials. The officials said that the UN special envoy would be allowed to go anywhere he wants in the Kingdom.

He will closely monitor the working of the Saudi judicial system and interact with senior Saudi judges.

Western media has long singled out Saudi Arabia for not complying with global human right conventions. Charges of human rights violations against the Saudi legal system have long plagued the Kingdom's international image.

The Western press has claimed that the authorities in the Kingdom resort to arbitrary arrests, corporal punishments such as flogging and the use of death penalty, which at times goes against the Geneva Conventions for human rights.

The Kingdom has however, been stressing that it sincerely applies Islamic Sharia and "being the citadel of Islam, the Kingdom cannot accept anything in contravention to the Islamic jurisprudence."

The U.S. media has recently highlighted the case of children born to Western mothers divorced by their Saudi husbands.

Coomarasawamy's visit to the Kingdom is being regarded as an epoch making event, which ultimately may result not only in improvement in the overall system but also in removing the misconceptions about the Saudi judicial system in the Western world.