Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is leading the conservative kingdom with ambitious, radical reforms and accelerated social changes that began with his rise to the leadership ladder five years ago, according to AFP. His meeting, Friday, with US President Joe Biden.
Biden initially adopted a hard line with Saudi Arabia, calling it a “pariah” state in his election campaign. After becoming president, he refused to speak directly with the crown prince and ordered the release of a US intelligence report implicating Prince Mohammed in Khashoggi’s murder.
But his tone has since changed, with the administration now focused on isolating Russia, hedging against China and tackling soaring oil prices.
“I always talk about human rights,” Biden told reporters on the eve of his visit to Saudi Arabia, but stressed that the purpose of his visit was “broader” and aimed at “reasserting” US influence in the Middle East.
Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, said Biden’s decision to visit Saudi Arabia was “heartbreaking” and accused the US president, in an interview with The Associated Press, on Thursday, of reneging on his pledge to prioritize human rights.
“It’s never been a country where you can speak freely, but what we’ve seen in the past five years is a complete shutdown of any public criticism or any suggestion that might disagree with the authorities,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
The Associated Press monitored the most prominent people targeted in what it called the “continuing crackdown” in the kingdom:
mother and son
Aziza al-Yousef, a mother of five, a grandmother, a former university professor, and a women’s rights activist often hosted Saudi intellectuals in her home.
She was arrested in mid-2018 along with other women’s rights activists, including Loujain al-Hathloul, just weeks before Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on women driving. State-linked media described them as traitors and faced vague charges related to their human rights work.
Some women said they were subjected to severe abuse while in detention. Aziza and others were released after 10 months but face a travel ban. Her husband and many of her grandchildren reside in the United States.
Her son, Salah al-Haydar, who holds dual Saudi and American citizenship, lobbied for his mother’s release while she was imprisoned. He was arrested in 2019 along with a group of writers who quietly advocated greater social reforms and had links to women’s rights activists. He was only released after Biden took office, but he remains under a travel ban.
The son of a former security official
Omar and Sarah al-Jabri – both in their early twenties – were arrested in March 2020. Their father, former senior security official Saad al-Jabri, helped oversee joint counterterrorism efforts with the United States and is now living in exile in Canada. He sued the prince in a US federal court, accusing him of trying to kidnap, arrest and kill him.
Omar was sentenced to 9 years in prison and Sarah to 6 and a half years in prison for money laundering and attempting to flee Saudi Arabia illegally. The family also says that al-Jabri’s brother-in-law, Salem al-Muzaini, was kidnapped from a third country, forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia, tortured and detained.
Rights groups say the arrests are aimed at pressuring al-Jabri to return to the kingdom, where his former boss, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, appears to remain in detention.
Aid worker criticized on Twitter
In March 2018, police in plain clothes kidnapped Abd al-Rahman al-Sadhan – who had recently graduated from a college in the United States – from his job at the Red Crescent office. Two whole years would pass without his family knowing about him. His family allege that during this time he was beaten, electrocuted, deprived of sleep, and verbally and sexually assaulted.
He is serving a 20-year prison sentence followed by a 20-year travel ban for satirical tweets critical of the Saudi government.
His sister, Areej Al-Sadhan, a US citizen living in California, says he was not an activist, but that he was well aware as an aid worker of the economic challenges facing Saudi youth.
The case against him may have its roots in a complex scheme that sparked a federal case against two Twitter employees accused of spying for Saudi Arabia.
The two men allegedly gained access to the user data of thousands of Twitter accounts, including nearly thirty usernames that the kingdom wanted to reveal.
famous religious figure
In September 2017, another wave of Saudi arrests targeted moderate clerics, academics, and writers, including Salman al-Awda, an influential religious figure who was once a leader of the Islamic Awakening Movement.
Al-Awda, a former TV presenter who has 13 million followers on Twitter, has always called on the public to focus more on fighting corruption and abuse of power rather than issues such as beards and the length of clothes.
He has been detained for nearly five years and has yet to be convicted. His family says he faces 37 charges, some of which relate to his alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Arab Spring uprisings. The prosecution is asking for the death penalty to be applied to him.
His brother Khaled was sentenced to five years in prison on charges that rights groups say include “sympathy for his brother.”
However, al-Awda is still respected among religious Saudis because he did not receive “salaries” from the government, said his son Abdullah al-Awda, a prominent figure in Dawn or Dawn of the United States.
“For the government, he is dangerous because he has that religious authority, that religious background. He has taught generations of scholars and students,” Al-Odah said.
reformer
Abdulaziz Al-Shubaili, 38, is among a group of intellectuals and activists imprisoned for belonging to the Association for Civil and Political Rights in Saudi Arabia, known as ACPRA. They were convicted of charges such as “inciting public order,” “insulting the judiciary,” and “participating in an unauthorized association.”
Al-Shubaili is serving an 8-year prison sentence and faces a long travel ban upon his release. His sentence was handed down in mid-2016 by the Specialized Criminal Court, which was established to try terrorism cases, but was used to try human rights activists who were considered a threat to national security.
In 2013, the two prominent founding activists of ACPRA, Muhammad al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Hamid, were sentenced to 10 and 11 years in prison, respectively. About ten members of the organization are serving prison sentences.
Saudi exile
Saudi officials say that there are no political prisoners in the kingdom, and they deny the existence of human rights violations and say that they are only fighting extremism and corruption and working to protect the kingdom’s national security. They advocate monitoring activists as necessary to maintain social stability, according to Archyde.com.