Rand Paul Calls For Boycott Of Saudi And Slams Clinton For Accepting Their Donations

Americans should boycott Saudi Arabia, said Senator Rand Paul, which was a seeming attack on Hillary Clinton for accepting donations from countries that were abusing women.

The Republican Kentucky senator, who is considering standing for Presidential elections in 2016, pointed out that Saudi Arabia is "a regime that punishes women who are raped," reminding his listeners of a recent 19-year-old woman who was gang-raped and then sentenced by a Saudi court to lashes for "violating sex segregation laws."

"Remember when South Africa was misbehaving? We organized a boycott of South Africa. We should be boycotting Saudi Arabia and not taking money from Saudi Arabia's government," Paul said, in a meeting of Republican voters and legislators at the BeanTowne cafe on Saturday.

Hillary Clinton, a Democrat presidential frontrunner for the impending election, was slammed for her family foundation accepting donations from Saudi Arabia and other countries that have an abysmal record of women's protection.

On Friday, he began to accuse Clinton of "duplicity" by accepting Saudi donations, even as she was supposed to champion women's rights in the US.

"I don't think you can be a champion of women's rights when you take money from a regime that punishes women who are raped," Paul said, asking her to return all the donations.

However, in a counter-argument, Holly Shulman, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, told him: "If Rand Paul suddenly cares about women's rights, then he needs to support equal pay, support the Violence Against Women Act, and support access to women's health services."

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Clinton Foundation had received $7.3 million from Saudi Arabians between 1999 and 2014. The money had reportedly gone to "improving the lives of millions of people around the globe."

Saudi Arabia is a key US ally in the Middle East. It has hosted its military bases and is also a patron of Bahrain, which is the home of the US Fifth Fleet, according to triblive.

When King Abdullah of the Saudi royal family died, President Barak Obama visited the kingdom to pay his respects, after cutting short his India tour visit and meeting the successor, King Salman.