WHEN journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and never came out the world responded in the appropriate way – with outrage.
To human rights defenders from the Gulf, it’s this outrage rather than the crime that was shocking
Not because the crime itself was not horrifying – it was. But how is it shocking for a country that still beheads
people and crucifies them? For a country that legalises modern-day slavery? Why are people shocked that a country that has a history of kidnapping – and in some cases has tied up, and forcefully returned women trying to escape their abusive environments – would kidnap a Saudi journalist?
To say that Saudi’s allies have turned a blind eye to Saudi’s crimes would be incorrect. The truth is that Saudi’s allies enable them to commit these crimes and in making sure they’re not held accountable, they rendering themselves complicit.
When Saudi Arabia decided to send troops into Bahrain to help an absolute monarchy violently shut down a peaceful pro-democracy uprising, the US Secretary of State stated that Bahrain has the sovereign right to invite foreign troops into the country – not quite the position the US administration had on Russian troops in Crimea.
Then Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) took over and started to consolidate his power. The “progressive” agenda that MbS was applauded for was more related to getting rid of factions that were loyal to other members of the ruling family, such as the religious police, than a genuine belief in promoting rights and freedoms.
Human rights defenders like myself spent months meeting with governments abroad, warning that while the world fell for MbS’s PR trip to the US and Europe, the situation inside Saudi was getting worse, especially for civil society.
Anyone who understands respect of human rights and freedoms, understands that a free and vibrant civil society is at the very heart of that.
Which is why, if you want to know the human rights situation in any country, you should ask “where are their human rights defenders?”. In Saudi, many were already in prison, such as Waleed Abulkhair, Ashraf Fayadh, Raif Badawi to name a few.
Then came the crackdown in May 2018 which targeted the most well-known women rights defenders in Saudi. This was especially ironic, as just a month later MbS was widely celebrated for giving women the right to drive – the very right that these women, imprisoned without charges, were fighting for.
Neither the diplomatic nor business international community reacted appropriately, and the majority of Saudi human rights defenders who have risked everything struggling for human rights and
reform, languish in prison cells today.
Activist Isra’a AlGhomgham is currently on trial, and the prosecution has called for the death penalty for protesting peacefully in the Eastern Province.
The international community failed to react when Saudi beheaded 47 people in one day, amongst them Sheikh Nimr AlNimr, who was executed because he practiced his right to free speech.
The outrage on Khashoggi’s case was not afforded to Sheikh Nimr AlNimr, who was mainly targeted because of his call for respect of human rights and freedoms in Saudi, and his call for Sunnis and Shias to unite against oppressive regimes.
We mention all of this and still haven’t even begun to speak about the region’s poorest country, Yemen, where MbS launched a war, killing thousands of civilians, targeting a children’s school bus, funerals and weddings.
This war is mainly possible because of arms sold to Saudi by numerous countries in the West, mainly the United States and the United Kingdom.
The absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia has survived and become stronger due to the support from its allies, and the willingness to do business regardless of what crimes Saudi commits.
Even the countries that are considered the most progressive, who are proud of their progressiveness on gender equality and women’s rights, send delegations and sell arms to the regime.
After the Khashoggi murder, we saw many top business personalities announce that they would not attend Davos in the Desert – an economic investment forum in Saudi.
What isn’t as well known, though, is that they sent lower-level employees, and the forum announced $50 billion in foreign investment deals on the first day of the forum.
The Khashoggi case will be a turning point either way for Saudi Arabia. But the more likely scenario is that the Saudis will use the ridiculous explanation they’ve offered on the murder and continue to feign outrage, which will give the diplomatic and business communities just the right amount of space to go back to business as usual.
Maryam al-Khawaja is a human rights activist
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