Social media users launch boycott campaign against Saudi products over Yemen crimes

Social media users and activists in Arab countries have launched an online campaign calling for a boycott of Saudi products in protest at the regime’s war crimes against Yemeni people.

People from Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt and several other Arab countries have mobilized on online social media platforms such as Twitter to prompt a global movement against the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

They are poised to set off a Twitter storm in protest at the Riyadh regime’s atrocities committed during the military offensive.

The activists have also circulated a video on social media websites, urging the public to avoid purchasing Saudi-made goods in a show of support for war-stricken Yemenis.

The anti-Saudi campaign is said to be similar to the one known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations against the Israeli regime.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the former government back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

A number of Western countries, the US and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.