tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/jamal-khashoggi-60971/articles
Jamal Khashoggi – The Conversation
2023-07-06T20:21:04Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208468
2023-07-06T20:21:04Z
2023-07-06T20:21:04Z
Is Saudi Arabia using ‘sportswashing’ to simply hide its human rights abuses – or is there a bigger strategy at play?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535724/original/file-20230705-22-nitql4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=278%2C13%2C4080%2C2932&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Christiano Ronaldo signed a 2.5-year contract with the Saudi team with Al Nassr, estimated to be worth more than 200 million euros. He made his debut in January.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hussein Malla/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Saudi Arabia continues to open up internationally, it is yet again <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/jun/07/saudi-arabia-deal-pga-major-step-sportswashing-golf">in hot water over its human rights record</a>. <a href="https://au.sports.yahoo.com/tennis-john-mcenroe-saudi-arabia-swipe-american-legend-shuts-down-nick-kyrgios-call-052520020.html">The current controversy</a> revolves around the kingdom’s increasing presence in the sporting world and accusations of “sportswashing”. </p>
<p>In recent years, the Saudis have thrown the heavy weight of their <a href="https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/Pages/Homepage.aspx">Public Investment Fund</a> into partnerships with Western institutions like the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/06/06/liv-golf-pga-tour-merger/">PGA</a>, <a href="https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2023/Saudi_Arabia.html">Formula One racing</a> and <a href="https://www.thesportster.com/things-you-should-know-wwe-deal-saudi-arabia/">World Wrestling Entertainment</a>. </p>
<p>Riyadh is also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/sports/soccer/saudi-soccer-messi-benzema-ronaldo.html">luring top soccer players</a> like Cristiano Ronaldo to its national league and using <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/18/sports/soccer/lionel-messi-saudi-arabia.html">Lionel Messi</a> as an influencer to promote the kingdom.</p>
<p>Recently, Saudi Arabia has signalled its interest in holding <a href="https://apnews.com/article/saudi-arabia-womens-tennis-sportswashing-8e1dbf680b6307cb6c2603c9f58a4379">women’s tennis tournaments</a> and even potentially hosting the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/saudi-arabia-forging-network-to-bid-for-2030-world-cup/a-64866806">2030 FIFA World Cup</a>, as well.</p>
<p>While the precise dollar figure of all of these efforts is difficult to determine, it has easily reached into the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/28/saudi-arabia-has-spent-at-least-15bn-on-sportswashing-report-reveals">billions</a>.</p>
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<h2>‘Sportswashing’ atrocities?</h2>
<p>But the Saudi sport blitz has been received with less enthusiasm by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/13/saudi-arabia-golf-human-rights-sportswashing">many</a> <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-arabia-sportswashing-human-rights-accusations-60-minutes-2023-04-09/">outside onlookers</a>. </p>
<p>Human Rights Watch and many <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-24/liv-golf-saudi-arabia-and-sportswashing-adelaide/102255808">Western</a> <a href="https://www.sportingnews.com/au/golf/news/sportswashing-pga-tour-liv-golf-merger-saudi-arabia/ztq8cmgar21l3e3yt9ueer4d">commentators</a> describe it as simple “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/16/saudi-arabias-newest-sportswashing-strategy-sponsorship-womens-world-cup">sportswashing</a>” – an effort to distract the world’s attention from its continual disregard for international human rights.</p>
<p>For instance, the kingdom has racked up a well-documented <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/torture-slow-motion-economic-blockade-yemen-and-its-grave-humanitarian-consequences#:%7E:text=The%20naval%20blockade%20imposed%20on,in%20a%20report%20published%20today.">record</a> of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/saudi-war-crimes-yemen/">human rights violations</a> during its eight-year proxy war in Yemen. </p>
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<p>Despite Riyadh’s murky <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/10/saudi-arabia-makes-peace-proposal-for-yemen-after-houthi-talks">peace deal</a> with the Houthi fighters in Yemen in April, the war <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/1/18/hrw-saudi-violating-international-law-in-war-on-yemen">will remain a stain</a> on its humanitarian record for the foreseeable future. </p>
<p>The lack of any meaningful reparations following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/peace-may-finally-be-returning-to-yemen-but-can-a-fractured-nation-be-put-back-together-203668">peace deal</a> also raises the question whether the deal was simply a way for the Saudis to disengage from the war at a time when a serious rebranding campaign was needed.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/peace-may-finally-be-returning-to-yemen-but-can-a-fractured-nation-be-put-back-together-203668">Peace may finally be returning to Yemen, but can a fractured nation be put back together?</a>
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<p>At home, political freedoms and rights remain tightly constrained by the regime. Despite moves to relax some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/world/middleeast/saudi-driving-ban-anniversary.html">restrictions on women</a> and religious minorities, these reforms have paradoxically come with increasingly harsh measures towards peaceful dissidents. </p>
<p>Only last year, female activists <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/17/saudi-salma-shehab-activist/">Salma al-Shehab</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62736118">Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani</a> received prison terms of 34 years and 45 years, respectively, for their engagement with social media posts criticising the regime. </p>
<p>More recently, several Howeitat tribesmen were <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/05/saudi-arabia-un-experts-alarmed-imminent-executions-linked-neom-project">sentenced to death on terrorism charges</a> for peacefully protesting a megacity project that threatened their ancestral village.</p>
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<h2>Building a new Saudi brand</h2>
<p>But while obfuscating human rights issues is certainly part of the equation when it comes to the kingdom’s sports mania, its motivations <a href="https://www.playthegame.org/news/the-saudis-in-sport-ambitions-much-larger-than-sportswashing/">are far more strategic</a> than simple bait-and-switch tactics. </p>
<p>At their core, these actions fit within a broader effort outlined in the <a href="https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/">Saudi Vision 2030</a> campaign to rebrand the country and normalise it within the wider liberal international order.</p>
<p>For many outside observers, the kingdom has long been an outlier on the international stage. It’s been characterised as a primitive backwater cut off from the outside world and ruled over by a despotic monarchy that has relied on a combination of oil wealth and Islamic extremism to maintain its hold on power. </p>
<p>Such reductive depictions ignored a far more <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/iss-24-securitising-identity-paperback-softback">complex, rich and colourful history</a>. However, few in the West were keen to explore this more nuanced viewpoint (at least if my <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/Iss-24-Securitising-Identity-Saudi/dp/052287231X">book sales</a> are anything to go by). </p>
<p>Saudi royals have historically been content with such stereotypes, too, provided they maintained their sovereignty and security at home. The kingdom made little effort with <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/minisite/static/4ca0813c-585e-4fe1-86eb-de665e65001a/fpwhitepaper/foreign-policy-white-paper/chapter-eight-partnerships-and-soft-power/soft-power.html#:%7E:text=Having%20the%20ability%20to%20influence,is%20known%20as%20soft%20power.">soft power</a> initiatives outside the Islamic world. </p>
<p>The international art, culture and sporting worlds were seen as being in stark contrast to the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/29606243/The_Saudi_State_as_an_Identity_Racketeer">psychological and cultural norms</a> of the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses/wahhabism.html">Wahhabi orthodoxy</a> that has long governed Saudi public life. </p>
<p>This all changed in 2015, however, with the ascension of King Salman and his chosen heir, Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The younger bin Salman quickly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/22/saudi-crown-princes-ascendancy-gives-hope-of-reform-but-it-may-be-premature">assumed</a> de facto control over many of the country’s key portfolios. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535945/original/file-20230706-15-s5muy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535945/original/file-20230706-15-s5muy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535945/original/file-20230706-15-s5muy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535945/original/file-20230706-15-s5muy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535945/original/file-20230706-15-s5muy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535945/original/file-20230706-15-s5muy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535945/original/file-20230706-15-s5muy6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomes US President Joe Biden to his palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in July 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace/AP</span></span>
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<p>In contrast to his conservative predecessors, the prince was seen as a “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/12/middleeast/saudi-sport-mbs-global-ambitions-mime-intl/index.html">disruptor</a>” with little regard for tradition. Like with many of the Silicon Valley tech-bros he emulates, bin Salman likes to move fast and break things. This includes everything from traditional <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/saudi-arabia/changing-times-for-saudi-arabias-once-feared-morality-police/articleshow/88987601.cms?from=mdr">religious institutions</a> to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/26/8931389/saudi-arabia-mega-city-neom-plans-futuristic-dystopian-ai-robot-fake-moon">architectural rules</a>.</p>
<p>Bin Salman’s vision is to remake the Saudi brand as a modern authoritarian technocracy in the mould of the United Arab Emirates or Qatar. He wants to emulate these successful case studies through economic reform, military modernisation, technological innovation, cultural modernisation and the opening of the kingdom to cosmopolitan cultural engagement and exchanges.</p>
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<h2>A new platform to engage with the world</h2>
<p>These efforts took a hit, however, after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Bin Salman <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/06/us-judge-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-khashoggi">denied</a> being personally involved in the murder, counter to what US intelligence reports <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/us/politics/jamal-khashoggi-killing-cia-report.html">concluded</a>. But some believed the global anger of Khashoggi’s killing could have
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/17/cia-khashoggi-findings-highly-damaging-to-saudi-prince-mohammed-bin-salman">damaged the prince’s reputation badly enough</a> to hamper his future as a statesman.</p>
<p>Memories can be remarkably short-lived, though. And five years on from the killing, bin Salman’s rebranding agenda is charging ahead with increased urgency. This is where the Saudi sporting onslaught comes in, and why it needs to be understood. </p>
<p>Control and influence over these sports provide the kingdom with enormous cachet. Saudi Arabia can use this new stature to engage in cultural outreach with the world, influence global opinion and portray itself as modern and dynamic.</p>
<p>To characterise all of this as mere sportswashing may be catchy, but reduces a much broader and strategic effort.</p>
<p>Indeed, implicit in the notion of sportswashing is that the Saudis are suddenly concerned about the country’s association with human rights violations. </p>
<p>But looking at the examples of Qatar and the UAE, authoritarian regimes are able to flout international norms and laws on human rights and still fit quite comfortably within the wider liberal international order. The reason: the countries serve a valuable function in sustaining that same system.</p>
<p>While human rights abuses will undoubtedly continue to plague the Saudis’ efforts, bin Salman is betting big they won’t stand in the way of other states and companies engaging with an increasingly open and cosmopolitan kingdom. If history is anything to go by, he may just be right.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/big-money-bought-the-pga-tour-but-can-it-make-golf-a-popular-sport-in-saudi-arabia-207803">Big money bought the PGA Tour, but can it make golf a popular sport in Saudi Arabia?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Rich receives funding from The US State Department. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leena Adel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Prince Mohammad bin Salman is trying to rebrand the kingdom in the model of Qatar and the UAE – two states with human rights issues that have become part of the global order.
Ben Rich, Senior lecturer in History and International Relations, Curtin University
Leena Adel, PhD Candidate, Political Science and International Relations, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156281
2021-03-03T13:26:11Z
2021-03-03T13:26:11Z
Why repressive Saudi Arabia remains a US ally
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387331/original/file-20210302-13-2trpe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C75%2C4125%2C3131&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A demonstrator dressed as Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with blood on his hands protests outside the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.mx/detail/fotografia-de-noticias/demonstrator-dressed-as-saudi-arabian-crown-fotografia-de-noticias/1048899574?adppopup=true">Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman “approved an operation … to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” according to a scathing <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/the-report-on-jamal-khashoggi-killing/ddc9578e0994f690/full.pdf">new report</a> from the Biden administration. Yet President Joe Biden says the U.S. will not sanction the Saudi government, calculating that any direct punishment <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/us/politics/biden-mbs-khashoggi.html">could risk Saudi Arabia’s cooperation</a> in confronting Iran and in counterterrorism efforts.</p>
<p>Like his predecessors, Biden is <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/02/biden-middle-east-china-pivot-clinton-obama/">grappling with the reality</a> that Saudi Arabia is needed to achieve certain U.S. objectives in the Middle East.</p>
<p>This is a change from Biden’s criticism of Saudi Arabia on the campaign trail. He said his administration would turn this repressive kingdom – a longtime U.S. ally – into a global “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-retreats-saudi-arabia-sanctions-khashoggi-killing-d91d31edece5db07112d1c2d4dd3be33">pariah</a>.”</p>
<p>The Khashoggi affair highlights a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AOUBMM/">persistent oddity in American foreign policy</a>, one <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2015.1034570">I observed</a> in many years working at the State Department and Department of Defense: selective morality in dealing with repressive regimes.</p>
<h2>A panoply of dictators</h2>
<p>The Trump administration was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/us/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-arms-deal.html">reluctant</a> to confront Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who lived in Virginia. Beyond <a href="https://www.apnews.com/9c79116125c740d084eaf3576d8958a8">revoking the visas</a> of some Saudi officials implicated in Khashoggi’s death, Trump did nothing to punish the kingdom for Khashoggi’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/world/middleeast/erdogan-khashoggi-turkey-saudi-arabia.html">torture, assassination and dismemberment</a>. </p>
<p>Trump and other White House officials reminded critics that Saudi Arabia buys <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-security/obama-administration-arms-sales-offers-to-saudi-top-115-billion-report-idUSKCN11D2JQ">billions of dollars in weapons</a> from the U.S. and is a crucial partner in the American pressure campaign on Iran. Biden has taken a slightly tougher line, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/26/us/report-jamal-khashoggi-killing.html?searchResultPosition=18">approving the release</a> of the intelligence report that blames bin Salman for Khashoggi’s murder and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-khashoggi-sanctions/u-s-imposes-sanctions-visa-bans-on-saudis-for-journalist-khashoggis-killing-idUSKBN2AQ2QI">sanctioning 76 lower-level Saudi officials</a>.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia isn’t the only nation to get a free pass from the U.S. for its terrible misdeeds. The U.S. has for decades <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007FI40QU/">maintained close ties</a> with some of the world’s worst human rights abusers. Ever since the United States emerged from the Cold War as the world’s dominant military and economic power, consecutive American presidents have seen financial and geopolitical benefit in overlooking the bad deeds of brutal regimes. </p>
<p>Before the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran was a close U.S. ally. Shah Reza Pahlavi <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/middleeast/years-of-torture-in-iran-comes-to-light.html">ruled harshly</a>, using his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/12/13/savak-jails-stark-reminder-of-shahs-rule/b2b37be2-356a-43e2-ba68-dd474e9023b0/?utm_term=.b82257b17760">secret police</a> to torture and murder political dissidents. </p>
<p>But the shah was also a secular, anti-communist leader in a Muslim-dominated region. President Nixon <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249664268_The_Persian_Gulf_British_Withdrawal_and_Western_Security">hoped</a> that Iran would be the “Western policeman in the Persian Gulf.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nixon hosted Iranian Shah Reza Pavlavi at the White House in 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/a6784660844b49a69c5fc2b4e34e53df/211/0">AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>After the shah’s overthrow, the Reagan administration in the 1980s became <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/31/iraq.politics">friendly with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein</a>. The U.S. supported him with intelligence during Iraq’s war with Iran and looked the other way at his use of chemical weapons.</p>
<p>And before Syria’s intense <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-war-in-syria-may-be-ending-but-is-likely-to-bring-a-fresh-wave-of-suffering-104635">bloody civil war</a> – which has killed an estimated 400,000 people and featured grisly <a href="https://theconversation.com/syria-chemical-weapons-and-the-limits-of-international-law-95045">chemical weapon attacks</a> by the government – its authoritarian regime enjoyed relatively friendly relations with the U.S. </p>
<p>Syria has been on the State Department’s list of <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/ct/list/c14151.htm">state sponsors of terrorism</a> since 1979. But presidents Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton all visited President Bashar al-Assad’s father, who ruled from 1971 until his death in 2000. </p>
<h2>Why Saudi Arabia matters</h2>
<p>Before the alleged assassination of Khashoggi by Saudi operatives, the 35-year-old crown prince was cultivating a reputation as a moderate reformer.</p>
<p>Salman has made newsworthy changes in the conservative Arab kingdom, allowing women <a href="https://qz.com/1313101/saudi-arabias-women-are-finally-allowed-to-drive-a-car-on-their-own/">to drive</a>, combating corruption and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-crown-prince-talks-to-60-minutes/">curtailing some powers</a> of the religious police. </p>
<p>Still, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. </p>
<p>Though women may now obtain a passport without the permission of a male guardian, they <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/saudi-arabia#49dda6">still need a guardian’s approval</a> to get married, leave prison or obtain certain medical procedures. And they must have the consent of a male guardian to enroll in college or look for a job. </p>
<p>The Saudi government also routinely arrests people without judicial review, according to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/saudi-arabia">Human Rights Watch</a>. Citizens can be killed for nonviolent crimes, often in public. Between January and mid-November 2019, 81 people <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/saudi-arabia#49dda6">were executed</a> for drug-related crimes.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia ranks just above North Korea on political rights, civil liberties and other measures of freedom, according to the democracy watchdog <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores">Freedom House</a>. The same report ranks both Iran and China ahead of the Saudis.</p>
<p>But its wealth, strategic Middle East location and petroleum exports keep the Saudis as a vital U.S. ally. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-visit-to-ally-saudi-arabia-shadowed-by-tensions-with-the-kingdom/2016/04/20/a0a987e0-06eb-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html?utm_term=.ec236b5e369b">President Obama visited Saudi Arabia more</a> than any other American president – four times in eight years – to discuss everything from Iran to oil production.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Obama administration had a close relationship with Saudi Arabia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Saudi-Arabia-US-Obama/9dd3372647cc49c393cc2eee197e3589/60/0">AP Photo/Hassan Ammar</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>American realpolitik</h2>
<p>This kind of foreign policy – one based on practical, self-interested principles rather than moral or ideological concerns – is called “realpolitik.” </p>
<p>Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under Nixon, was <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2013/09/the-realpolitik-of-the-american-people/">a master of realpolitik</a>, which drove that administration to normalize its relationship with China. Diplomatic relations between the two countries had ended in 1949 when Chinese communist revolutionaries took power. </p>
<p>Then, as now, China was incredibly repressive. Only 16 countries – including Saudi Arabia – <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-country-scores">are less free than China</a>, according to Freedom House. Iran, a country the U.S. wants Saudis to help in keeping in check, ranks ahead of China.</p>
<p>But China is also the world’s most populous nation and a nuclear power. Nixon, a fervent anti-communist, sought to exploit a growing rift between China and the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>Today Washington retains the important, if occasionally rocky, relationship Kissinger forged with Beijing, despite its ongoing <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-45474279">persecution of Muslim minority groups</a>.</p>
<p>American realpolitik applies to Latin America, too. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the U.S. regularly backed Central and South American <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/u-s-support-for-brutal-central-american-dictators-led-to-todays-border-crisis/">military dictators</a> who tortured and killed citizens to “defend” the Americas from communism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The U.S. supported Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military coup in Chile, which overthrew Socialist President Salvador Allende and ushered in a murderous regime.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Chile-Coup-Anniversary/1ffc40b46e52475eae3debfa3defb895/26/0">AP Photo/Enrique Aracena, File)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>US not ‘so innocent’</h2>
<p>U.S. presidents tend to underplay their relationships with repressive regimes, lauding lofty “American values” instead. </p>
<p>That’s the language former President Barack Obama used in 2018 to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/7/17832024/obama-speech-trump-illinois-transcript">criticize Trump’s embrace of Russia’s authoritarian president</a>, Vladimir Putin, citing America’s “commitment to certain values and principles like the rule of law and human rights and democracy.”</p>
<p>But Trump defended his relationship with Russia, tacitly invoking American realpolitik. “You think our country’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/04/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin/index.html">so innocent</a>?” he asked on Fox News. </p>
<p>As Trump alluded to, the U.S. has maintained close ties to numerous regimes, and still does, whose values and policies conflict with America’s constitutional guarantees of democracy, freedom of speech, the right to due process and many others. </p>
<p>It has for decades. </p>
<p>Saudi Arabia’s crown prince had a dissident journalist killed. American realpolitik explains why the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/politics/trump-saudi-khashoggi-midterms.html">tight U.S.-Saudi relationship</a> will likely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/26/mohammed-bin-salman-is-guilty-murder-biden-should-not-give-him-pass/?arc404=true">continue anyway</a>.</p>
<p><em>This story is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabia-is-a-repressive-regime-and-so-are-a-lot-of-us-allies-105106">article</a> originally published Oct. 22, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156281/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Fields receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the MacArthur Foundation. </span></em></p>
Saudi’s crown prince approved the killing and dismemberment of a Washington Post columnist in 2018, the Biden administration says. So how can the US still see the Saudis as good partners?
Jeffrey Fields, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/156165
2021-03-02T10:26:31Z
2021-03-02T10:26:31Z
Jamal Khashoggi: why the US is unlikely to deliver justice for the murdered journalist
<p>When Saudi Arabian dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45812399">murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul</a> in October 2018, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had not expected the outcry that would follow. For perhaps the first time in recent history, Saudi critics and Saudi supporters were united in their condemnation of the extrajudicial killing.</p>
<p>The allegations – that Khashoggi, who had disappeared after entering the embassy on October 2, had been murdered and his body dismembered and disposed of by Saudi agents – sparked a diplomatic crisis in Istanbul, Riyadh and London, but not in Washington DC. The then US president, Donald Trump, continued to publicly support Saudi Arabia and Prince Mohammed, its de facto ruler. Two-and-a-half years later, the White House has a new occupant. With a CIA investigation into Khashoggi’s murder now <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Assessment-Saudi-Gov-Role-in-JK-Death-20210226v2.pdf">declassified</a>, will the US president, Joe Biden, shift the gear on US-Saudi relations?</p>
<p>What the headline of the CIA’s report into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi would be has been relatively clear all this time: Prince Mohammed approved an operation to “capture or kill” Khashoggi. And yet Trump was not interested in justice for the murdered journalist. Trump’s focus on pursuing a transactional relationship with the Gulf state, quantifiable in billions made from weapons deals and arms exports, formed the baseline for the US relationship with Saudi Arabia during his presidency.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1144832867702382592"}"></div></p>
<p>Biden, however, so far appears interested in restoring the importance placed on values in international relations, and has been more reticent about engaging with Prince Mohammed directly during his first month in office. The White House has signalled that Biden is looking to rebalance the relationship with Saudi Arabia. It is a challenge many US presidents have grappled with before. Biden will supposedly seek to carefully balance cooperation with a long-standing US ally, while taking more of a stand than his predecessor did against Saudi Arabia’s excesses, such as its waging of war in Yemen, which has sparked the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.</p>
<p>So far, Biden has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-55941588">ended US support</a> for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen. He has also put a temporary stop to arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, including <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/mideast-africa/2021/02/05/boeing-raytheon-missile-sales-to-saudi-arabia-canceled-by-biden-administration/">precision-guided munitions</a>, which have been used to target Yemeni civilians. This is significant, given that in the period 2015 to 2019 just under <a href="https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers">75% of Saudi arms imports</a> came from the US. Alongside the publication of the CIA report, secretary of state Antony Blinken announced a “<a href="https://www.state.gov/accountability-for-the-murder-of-jamal-khashoggi/">Khashoggi ban</a>”, which imposes visa restrictions on any individuals who have threatened dissidents overseas on behalf of a foreign government. The US has immediately used the ban to impose visa restrictions on 76 Saudi nationals.</p>
<h2>Still friends?</h2>
<p>Ultimately though, none of these measures directly target or affect Prince Mohammed, who the CIA points to as the person who approved Khashoggi’s murder. While the White House has tried to send signals to Saudi Arabia and may not favour Prince Mohammed, it is likely he will take over the throne from his father and rule the kingdom for decades to come. The Biden administration may dislike Prince Mohammed personally, but they will probably need to work with him if the US is to maintain a working relationship with Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>The Biden administration is sending a strong signal that past erratic behaviour by the crown prince will no longer be tolerated. However, it is not clear what, exactly, any consequences in response to such behaviour would be and the extent to which Biden is willing to put the US-Saudi alliance on the line. It is also unclear whether the Biden administration will seek to target Prince Mohammed individually.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia anticipated Biden’s position and has sought to sweeten the new administration by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-56012650">releasing</a> Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul from prison and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-55538792">restoring</a> diplomatic relations with Qatar. Having heard the promises Biden made while on the campaign trail, during which he called Saudi Arabia a “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/11/21/democratic-debate-joe-biden-saudi-arabia/">pariah state</a>”, the timing of these is no coincidence. </p>
<p>The extent to which the US-Saudi relationship will indeed cool remains to be seen. Saudi Arabia is still considered a key US ally to hedge against Iranian influence in the Middle East. Iran has steadily <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-security-blast-proxies-factbox-idUSKBN1Z21I3">increased its reach</a> in the region through proxy organisations which operate in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Equally, the US may simply believe that they cannot afford to lose Saudi Arabia as an ally in the Middle East, particularly as the Gulf state is considered to be a key ally in counter-terrorism efforts. </p>
<p>So, while the Biden administration may seek to distance itself from the cosy relationship that Prince Mohammed enjoyed with the Trump family and reset the relationship in that regard, it is unlikely that it will cut all diplomatic and political ties with Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>Where does this leave justice for Jamal Khashoggi? The CIA report does clarify where his body is. It is unlikely that Prince Mohammed will ever be tried by an independent judiciary for his role in the murder, or that he will be directly sanctioned by the US. Two-and-a-half years on, we are no closer to justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Armida L. M. van Rij receives funding from the Oxford Research Group.</span></em></p>
In the long term the US still needs Saudi Arabia as an ally in the Middle East.
Armida v., Research Associate in Security and Defence Policy at the Policy Institute at King's, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155301
2021-02-18T19:12:07Z
2021-02-18T19:12:07Z
The crisis in Yemen demands an independent review of NZ’s military links with Saudi Arabia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384877/original/file-20210217-23-xfo6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C3811%2C2552&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The revelation that Air New Zealand had been silently <a href="https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/exclusive-air-nz-has-been-secretly-helping-saudi-arabian-military-despite-its-role-in-yemen-humanitarian-crisis">contracting services</a> to the Saudi Arabian navy was apparently not the only instance of New Zealand’s connection to the murderous war in Yemen.</p>
<p>A week after Air New Zealand <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/436026/air-nz-apologises-after-revelations-it-helped-saudi-arabian-military">apologised</a> to the government, it emerged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT) had <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/436433/mfat-approved-exports-for-military-equipment-to-saudi-arabia-s-forces">approved exports</a> of military equipment to Saudi Arabia in 2016 and 2018.</p>
<p>Both cases involved a startling lack of transparency and direct inconsistencies with both corporate and country commitments to upholding international human rights obligations.</p>
<p>The conflict in Yemen is currently the world’s <a href="https://www.unfpa.org/news/after-years-conflict-yemen-remains-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis-unfpa-2021">worst humanitarian crisis</a>. From indiscriminate targeting of civilians to torture, sexual violence and starvation, the situation reads like a textbook case of war crimes.</p>
<p>Since 2014, there have been an estimated <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1078972">233,000 deaths</a>, including 131,000 from indirect causes such as lack of food, health services and infrastructure. More than 20 million experience food insecurity, and 10 million are at <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/yemen">risk of famine</a>.</p>
<p>The war is complex, fed by opposing regional, national and religious ambitions. While all sides justify their involvement, none have clean hands. All have been increasingly brutal in pursuit of their goals. </p>
<p>The first step towards calming the conflict will involve a halt to providing weapons to those forces not fighting in accordance with international humanitarian law — Saudi Arabia included.</p>
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<h2>Selective embargoes</h2>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/media-and-resources/ministry-statements-and-speeches/45th-session-human-rights-council-interactive-dialogue-on-the-reports-of-the-group-of-experts-on-yemen/">being on record</a> supporting calls for all parties in the Yemen conflict to abide by international law, New Zealand can no longer deny any potential complicity in this humanitarian abyss.</p>
<p>Efforts to control the situation stretch back to 2014. As well as various peace initiatives, the UN Security Council has mandated a limited <a href="https://undocs.org/en/S/RES/2216(2015)">arms embargo</a>, which <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/peace-rights-and-security/sanctions/yemen/">New Zealand complies with</a>. But these are targeted primarily at the Houthi rebels and associated terror groups, not the Saudi-led coalition fighting them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yemen-understanding-the-conflict-98296">Yemen: Understanding the conflict</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The inconsistency reflects the power of veto in the Security Council, but a UN panel of experts agreed all parties to the conflict have committed <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2021_79.pdf">egregious violations</a> of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.</p>
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<h2>Theory and practice</h2>
<p>In theory, the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty should help curtail the trade in weapons to this disastrous conflict. Its signatories (including New Zealand) <a href="https://thearmstradetreaty.org/treaty-text.html">agree not to authorise</a> any transfer of conventional arms, ammunition, parts and components, if they know such material could contribute to war crimes being committed.</p>
<p>In practice, this meant countries like New Zealand amended export laws to ensure all military and dual-use equipment was strictly controlled and not destined for the wrong places.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/arab-spring-after-a-decade-of-conflict-the-same-old-problems-remain-154314">Arab Spring: after a decade of conflict, the same old problems remain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>All military-related exports must be explicitly <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/trading-weapons-and-controlled-chemicals/how-to-export-military-and-dual-use-goods/">permitted</a>. Permits will be <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/trading-weapons-and-controlled-chemicals/how-your-application-is-assessed/#criteria">refused</a> if the export violates UN Security Council arms embargoes, contravenes New Zealand’s other international obligations, or if it is known such materials would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.</p>
<p>Reasonably, there should now be no military trade with the Saudi-led coalition (or the other belligerents). No country can seriously claim not to be aware of the extreme violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen.</p>
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<h2>Profit over principle</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, it seems the excessive profits to be made from a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep14282?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">soaring arms trade</a> have pushed aside evidence of war crimes or assassinations (in the case of the extrajudicial killing of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399">Jamal Khashoggi</a>).</p>
<p>Along with the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/9/uk-approved-1-4bn-of-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-post-export-ban">United Kingdom</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/09/canada-doubles-weapons-sales-to-saudi-arabia-despite-moratorium">Canada</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/11/australia-will-not-ban-arms-sales-to-countries-involved-in-yemeni-civil-war">Australia</a> and the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/02/04/its-time-to-stop-us-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia/">US</a> (although the Biden administration is reportedly <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/02/13/joe-biden-looks-to-end-the-war-in-yemen">reconsidering its policy</a>), it now appears New Zealand is included in this company.</p>
<p>Initially, New Zealand’s involvement was confined to humanitarian aid, providing <a href="https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/media-and-resources/news/new-zealand-humanitarian-assistance-for-yemen/">millions in assistance</a>. But if the latest reports are correct, the government must end any further military or dual-use engagement and ask how such decisions were justified in the past.</p>
<p>New Zealand’s involvement is comparatively small, but the scale of the trade matters less than its legal and ethical basis.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/arab-spring-when-the-us-needed-to-step-up-it-stood-back-now-all-eyes-are-on-biden-155058">Arab Spring: when the US needed to step up, it stood back – now, all eyes are on Biden</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Transparency and accountability</h2>
<p>The government must also require full transparency from Air New Zealand as its majority shareholder.</p>
<p>The airline has come a long way since it was famously accused of “<a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/the-detail/117731099/the-detail-legal-clarification-over-the-orchestrated-litany-of-lies-phrase">an orchestrated litany of lies</a>” over the 1979 Erebus disaster. As a putatively responsible corporate citizen it upholds social and environmental <a href="https://p-airnz.com/cms/assets/PDFs/air-new-zealand-sustainability-report-2020.pdf">sustainability</a> as part of its core values and <a href="https://p-airnz.com/cms/assets/PDFs/airnz-code-of-conduct-2020.pdf">code of conduct</a>.</p>
<p>Air New Zealand takes these responsibilities seriously enough to have pledged itself to the <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/mission/principles">ten principles</a> of the <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/our-work/all">Global Compact</a>. This UN initiative encourages businesses to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation.</p>
<p>Principle 2 <a href="https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/mission/principles/principle-2">requires</a> that a company should not be complicit in human rights abuses. Air New Zealand said in its 2020 report to the compact: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We take legal advice in the local jurisdictions we operate in about human rights compliance and require managers across the organisation to comply with all company policies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So far, none of this adds up — for MFAT, Air New Zealand or the government. An independent review of New Zealand’s involvement in the Yemen crisis — its scale, justification and status under existing laws and principles — is now called for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Gillespie has received funding from the NZ Law Foundation and the Francqui Foundation (in Belgium) in the past related to the study of war and conflict. None of it pertained to this piece.</span></em></p>
Air New Zealand and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade have both potentially breached international human rights agreements. The government must demand answers.
Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124961
2019-10-17T22:54:47Z
2019-10-17T22:54:47Z
Trading values to sell weapons: The Canada-Saudi relationship
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296603/original/file-20191011-188787-h0y5d2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C224%2C5389%2C3017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this August 2018 photo, Yemeni people attend the funeral of victims of a Saudi Arabia-led airstrike in Saada, Yemen. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In August 2018, the relationship between Canada and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia appeared to break down in a most public and modern way: over Twitter. </p>
<p>This began with mild criticism by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland of some of the kingdom’s long-standing <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/saudi-arabia">human rights abuses</a>. The Saudi government responded by immediately <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi-retaliation-canada-memo-1.5085832">suspending diplomatic relations with Canada and halting a number of trade, investment and education deals</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-major-trade-implications-of-the-canada-saudi-arabia-spat-101306">The major trade implications of the Canada-Saudi Arabia spat</a>
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<p>In the eyes of many, Canada appeared to be taking a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/08/saudi-arabia-canada-latest-egypt-russia">principled stand</a> that placed human rights ahead of monetary gain. This appeared befitting of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who presents himself and his government as leaders in the fight against <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/30/busy-day-for-trudeau-at-paris-climate-change-talks.html">climate change</a>, international law, human rights, LGBTQ rights and women’s rights. This includes an <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/fiap_action_areas-paif_champs_action.aspx?lang=eng">explicit feminist foreign policy agenda</a>. </p>
<h2>The polar opposite?</h2>
<p>Trudeau’s Canada also appeared the polar opposite of a conservative kingdom infamous for <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/60339/things-women-cant-do-in-saudi-arabia">denying women basic rights</a>, such as the right to drive or travel without a male guardian’s consent. The infamy includes frequent use of the death penalty. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabias-human-rights-abuses-10-examples-a6794576.html">Public beheadings</a> and crucifixions are regularly meted out in cases of public protest, homosexuality <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/saudi-arabias-war-on-witchcraft/278701/">and sorcery</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296467/original/file-20191010-188807-11jgl3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296467/original/file-20191010-188807-11jgl3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296467/original/file-20191010-188807-11jgl3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296467/original/file-20191010-188807-11jgl3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296467/original/file-20191010-188807-11jgl3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296467/original/file-20191010-188807-11jgl3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296467/original/file-20191010-188807-11jgl3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Deera Square in Riyadh is also known colloquially as ‘Chop Chop Square’ for the executions by beheading that take place there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WikiMedia Commons, Photographer: Luke Richard Thompson, 2011</span></span>
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<p>The Canada-Saudi rift appeared <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/trudeau-says-canada-wants-saudi-answer-on-its-role-in-khashoggi-killing-1.4178098">to deepen</a> after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/12/how-jamal-khashoggi-disappeared-visual-guide">the October 2018 abduction and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul</a>. Khashoggi was a Saudi dissident living in exile in Washington, D.C., where he worked as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/jamal-khashoggi/">a journalist for the <em>Washington Post</em></a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296594/original/file-20191011-188787-hlnnfl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The murder of Khashoggi further strained the Canada-Saudi Arabia relationship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Hasan Jamali</span></span>
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<p>Khashoggi had been due to visit Canada that autumn. In Canada, he was collaborating with another Saudi in exile, <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2018/10/how-a-canadian-permanent-resident-and-saudi-arabian-dissident-was-targeted-with-powerful-spyware-on-canadian-soil/">Omar Abdulaziz</a>. They were <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/khashoggi-israel-lawsuit-omar-abdulaziz-saudi-arabia-1.4929952">working on a project</a> meant to challenge and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/khashoggi-israel-lawsuit-omar-abdulaziz-saudi-arabia-1.4929952">rein in pro-Saudi monarchy internet trolls</a>. </p>
<p>This was part of a broader effort by Saudi liberal reformers to open up the kingdom to change, starting with avenues for freedom of speech. That was in fact the point of contention behind the August 2018 rift. Freeland’s tweet had been on behalf of imprisoned Saudi human rights blogger, Raif Badawi, and his liberal-reformist sister, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/saudi-women-rights-activist-samar-badawi-appears-court-190627074012916.html">Samar Badawi</a>.</p>
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<p>Less publicly, Canada has supported independent investigations into <a href="https://thedefensepost.com/2019/09/26/un-yemen-war-crimes-investigation-extended/">war crimes allegations against Saudi Arabia in Yemen</a>. Canada also joined several EU states to applaud recent Saudi reforms <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/geneva-saudi-statement-1.5294025">while condemning ongoing human rights abuses</a>.</p>
<p>Yet these actions are outweighed by Canada’s troublesome support for Saudi Arabia’s role in the Yemeni civil war. </p>
<h2>Tory support</h2>
<p>It started in March 2015, immediately after the entry of a Saudi-led coalition into the civil war. Rob Nicholson, the Conservative foreign affairs minister at the time, <a href="https://twitter.com/HonRobNicholson/status/599295989879541760?s=20">publicly lauded Saudi Arabia for its actions</a>: </p>
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<p>Ottawa backed up those comments with <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-saudi-arms-deal-what-weve-learned-so-far/article28180299/">large-scale arms exports</a> to help Saudi Arabia wage war.</p>
<p>The Trudeau government is well aware of the purpose of these sales. After the Liberals came to power in late 2015, approval was given to export light armoured vehicles (LAVs), manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems Canada (GDLS), to Saudi Arabia. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296587/original/file-20191011-188840-1fx7asm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The GDLS LAV II.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">General Dynamics Land Systems Canada</span></span>
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<p>As a <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/controls-controles/assets/pdfs/documents/Memorandum_for_Action-eng.pdf">now-declassified memo</a> states, the reasoning was that they would be useful for Saudi Arabia’s efforts at “<em>countering instability</em>” in Yemen. </p>
<p>Most would agree the Saudi-led coalition’s impact on the war in Yemen has been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPa6HUxy11w">anything but stablizing</a>. </p>
<p>A recent report for the United Nations by the organization Group of Experts on Yemen <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/A_HRC_42_17.pdf">stated that</a> “ … the continued supply of weapons to parties involved in the conflict in Yemen perpetuates the conflict and the suffering of the population.”</p>
<p>This includes the loss of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jun/20/human-cost-of-yemen-war-laid-bare-as-civilian-death-toll-put-at-100000">100,000 lives</a> <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/03/1035501">and millions of starving people</a>. </p>
<h2>Trouble finding weapons to buy</h2>
<p>As a result, Saudi Arabia is now having difficulties purchasing weapons for war. <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-arms-export-freeze-on-saudi-arabia-extended/a-50481984">Germany</a> announced the cancellation of arms deals to Saudi Arabia following the Khashoggi murder. British courts have ruled that arms exports to Saudi Arabia were unlawful <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jun/20/uk-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-for-use-in-yemen-declared-unlawful">in light of</a> Yemen. Other countries like <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-norway-emirates/norway-suspends-arms-sales-to-uae-over-yemen-war-idUSKBN1ES0HG">Norway</a> and <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/denmark-suspends-arms-exports-uae-over-yemen-war-report">Denmark</a> have even suspended arms transfers to Saudi’s coalition partner, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), over Yemen. </p>
<p>Most recently, Belgian authorities cancelled weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia, though it is unclear if the ban includes <a href="https://www.rtbf.be/info/belgique/detail_le-conseil-d-etat-annule-les-licences-d-exportations-d-armes-wallonnes-en-arabie-saoudite?id=10246413">turrets bound for Canada</a> to be installed on Saudi-bound GDLS LAVs. </p>
<p>Despite these efforts and those by the United States Congress <a href="https://www.rtbf.be/info/belgique/detail_le-conseil-d-etat-annule-les-licences-d-exportations-d-armes-wallonnes-en-arabie-saoudite?id=10246413">to block</a> arms sales over the human rights situation in Yemen, Canada has not followed suit. While the Trudeau government announced “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/canadians-seek-cancellation-major-arms-deal-saudi-arabia-190809191316431.html">a review</a>” of arms deals with Saudi Arabia in October 2018, it allowed this to drag on while permitting weapons shipments on an undisclosed number of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-saudi-arms-deal-1.4579772">existing permits</a>. </p>
<p>This includes <a href="https://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cimt-cicm/topNCommodity-marchandise?lang=eng&getSectionId()=0&dataTransformation=0&scaleValue=0&scaleQuantity=0&refYr=2019&refMonth=8&freq=9&countryId=369&getUsaState()=0&provId=1&retrieve=Retrieve&country=null&tradeType=1&topNDefault=10&monthStr=null&chapterId=87&arrayId=9800087&sectionLabel=XVII%20-%20Vehicles,%20aircraft,%20vessels%20and%20associated%20transport%20equipment">at least CDN$1.34 billion worth of exports since Khashoggi’s murder</a>.</p>
<h2>Ongoing Canadian involvement</h2>
<p>Though the Trudeau government announced it would not authorize <a href="https://globalnews.ca/video/5862537/freeland-says-no-deals-with-saudi-arabia-have-been-done-since-death-of-journalist-jamal-khashoggi">new export permits</a> during the review, this may be little more than a symbolic gesture. A resolute Saudi government had <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi-retaliation-canada-memo-1.5085832">already announced</a> its own ban on any new deals with Canadian companies. </p>
<p>While none of the newly produced LAVs have yet been spotted in Yemen, older-model Canadian-made LAVs and <a href="https://twitter.com/Silah_Report/status/973996196976119808">sniper rifles</a> are <a href="https://lostarmour.info/yemen/">regularly seen</a> in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZhv-IlPNEE">battle footage uploaded by Saudi and Yemeni forces</a>. The Yemen war has also been flooded with armoured vehicles made by other Canadian companies, like <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/controls-controles/assets/pdfs/documents/memorandum-memo.pdf">the UAE-based Streit Group, Terradyne Armored</a> and <a href="https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/10/07/ottawa-reviews-footage-of-destroyed-canadian-made-saudi-armoured-vehicles/">IAG</a>.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pratt--whitney-celebrates-the-inauguration-of-a-new-middle-east-propulsion-company-facility-159993065.html">Canadian-made engines</a> <a href="https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2019/01/12/fabriques-ici-pour-tuer">power</a> the Saudi-led coalition’s airplanes, <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2015-11-08/iomax-production-archangel-ready-uae-forces">attack aircraft</a> and <a href="https://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/saudi-arabia-ah-64d-apache-uh-60m-blackhawk-ah-6i-light-attack-and-md-530f-light">helicopters</a>. <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/11/30/news/experts-say-theres-proof-canadian-made-weapons-are-being-used-saudi-war-yemen">Canadian-made targeting systems</a> are <a href="https://www.wescam.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/WESCAM_TAQNIA-for-IDEX-2017_FINALFeb19_2017_rev.pdf">installed on these same aircraft</a>. Canada has <a href="https://twitter.com/JosephHDempsey/status/639073928091189248">supplied drones</a> to Saudi Arabia and <a href="https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2019/01/18/lametti-vantait-des-avions-destines-aux-forces-emiraties">surveillance aircraft</a> to <a href="https://www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2009/business/0227n13.htm">the UAE</a>, while a <a href="https://gbp.com.sg/stories/uae-air-force-rq-1e-rpa-training-track/">Canadian company trains</a> UAE predator <a href="https://www.monch.com/mpg/news/simulation/2894-uae-predator-training-underway.html">drone pilots</a>.</p>
<p>There are also <a href="https://en.arij.net/report/the-end-user-how-did-western-weapons-end-up-in-the-hands-of-isis-and-aqap-in-yemen">unconfirmed reports that Canadian weapons may have been illegally diverted to Yemeni forces fighting alongside the coalition</a>. </p>
<p>Much of this “Canadian content” is the result of increasing government support for the Canadian defence industry’s attempt to gain a foothold in the lucrative Middle East <a href="https://defence.frontline.online/article/2019/2/11332-Canadian-companies-vie-for-global-attention">arms market</a>. This got underway with Stephen Harper’s <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-exporting-arms-to-countries-with-suspicious-human-rights-records/article15817569/">Conservative government</a>, but has been <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-advised-to-deepen-ties-with-saudi-arabia-brace-for-change-in-iran-1.3394669">maintained</a> <a href="https://defence.frontline.online/article/2019/1/11186-Representing-Canada-in-the-UAE">by Trudeau</a>. </p>
<h2>Business as usual</h2>
<p>Regardless of a few <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46873796">high-profile cases of Canada providing support for individual women and reformers in the kingdom</a>, it appears to be favouring perceived economic gains over human rights values. </p>
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<p>While Canada has been increasing its aid budget for Yemen, this means little compared to the destruction wrought by the weapons and training it sells — sales that power a conflict that has <a href="https://www.oxfam.ca/blog/canada-joins-the-arms-trade-treaty-while-still-selling-arms-to-saudi-arabia/">deepened gender inequality</a> while threatening a devastated Yemen with division into three parts. </p>
<p>Freeland recently said, however, that the kingdom remains “<a href="https://globalnews.ca/video/5862537/freeland-says-no-deals-with-saudi-arabia-have-been-done-since-death-of-journalist-jamal-khashoggi">an important partner for Canada</a>.”</p>
<p>Whether Trudeau or Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer form a government after the Oct. 21 election, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi-arabia-g20-summit-trudeau-1.5205665">both appear</a> set to travel to Saudi Arabia in November 2020 for a G20 summit that will be used to rehabilitate the image of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, sullied by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/19/jamal-khashoggi-killing-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-evidence-un-report">his involvement in Khashoggi’s gruesome murder</a>. </p>
<p>During the current election campaign, only <a href="https://ricochet.media/en/2717/jagmeet-singh-stakes-out-clear-opposition-to-canada-saudi-arms-deal">the NDP</a> and <a href="https://www.greenparty.ca/sites/default/files/platform_2019_web_update_oct_6.pdf">Green Party of Canada</a> have committed to cancelling the LAV deal with Saudi Arabia. And only the New Democrats have suggested its government <a href="https://www.ndp.ca/news/ndp-statement-upcoming-g20-meeting-saudi-arabia">would not attend</a> the G20 summit in Riyadh.</p>
<p>Such a visit will otherwise offer the Canadian government the chance to make up with Saudi Arabia while telling the Canadian public that they pressed the kingdom on human rights, all while continuing with business as usual. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Wildeman is affiliated with the Rideau Institute and the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Fenton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A year after an infamous Twitter spat and the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, the Canada-Saudi relationship appears poised to return to business as usual, if it hasn’t already.
Jeremy Wildeman, Research Associate in International Development, University of Bath
Anthony Fenton, PhD Candidate (ABD), York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/118510
2019-06-25T23:13:55Z
2019-06-25T23:13:55Z
Canada’s labour movement must take a stand against the Saudi arms deal
<p>As Canada’s largest labour organization and the political arm of the labour movement, <a href="https://canadianlabour.ca/">the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC)</a> has long been a voice for peace, human rights and social justice. </p>
<p>But on one of the most controversial issues in Canadian politics, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5021709/saudi-arabia-canada-arms-deal/">Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia</a>, it has failed to take a meaningful stand. </p>
<p>Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners are waging war in Yemen. The war has plunged the country into what <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/02/1032811">the United Nations calls “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”</a></p>
<p>According to <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/2019_Yemen_HRP_V21.pdf">a recent UN report</a>, approximately 70,000 Yemenis have died since the beginning of 2016. Hospitals, schools, markets and mosques are common targets for Saudi coalition airstrikes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explained-how-the-arab-spring-led-to-an-increasingly-vicious-civil-war-in-yemen-55968">Explained: how the Arab Spring led to an increasingly vicious civil war in Yemen</a>
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<p>Two thirds of the Yemeni population require humanitarian support or protection, 17 million are food insecure, three million have fled their homes and 14.5 million require access to safe drinking water. And as <a href="http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2018/9/take-five-areej-jamal-al--khawlani">UN Women has found, women and girls bear the brunt of this devastating situation</a>. <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23479">A 2018 report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights</a> concluded that violations and crimes under international law have occurred and continue to be perpetrated in Yemen. </p>
<h2>Canada’s complicity</h2>
<p>Canada is complicit in the war in Yemen. The export of made-in-Canada light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia, an approximately $15-billion contract originally signed by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, is now proceeding under export permits approved by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.</p>
<p>New export permits for arms shipments to Saudi Arabia have reportedly been suspended <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-says-canada-trying-to-end-arms-export-deal-to-saudi-arabia/">pending an indefinite review by the Trudeau government following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi</a>. But <a href="https://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cimt-cicm/topNCommodity-marchandise?lang=eng&getSectionId()=0&dataTransformation=0&scaleValue=0&scaleQuantity=0&refYr=2019&refMonth=4&freq=12&countryId=369&getUsaState()=0&provId=1&retrieve=Retrieve&country=null&tradeType=1&topNDefault=10&monthStr=null&chapterId=87&arrayId=9800087&sectionLabel=XVII%20-%20Vehicles,%20aircraft,%20vessels%20and%20associated%20transport%20equipment">according to recent data from Statistics Canada</a> over half a billion dollars worth of armoured fighting vehicles have been exported through the port of Saint John, N.B., to Saudi Arabia in 2019 alone. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/saudi-arms-used-against-yemeni-rebels-seem-to-match-canadian-lavs/article28846678/">credible evidence that Canadian weapons sold to Saudi Arabia are being used in the devastating war in Yemen</a>. The Saudi-led coalition continues to commit serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Yemen, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/saudi-arabia">and Saudi Arabia also has a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of its own citizens</a>. </p>
<h2>Where’s the Canadian labour movement?</h2>
<p>In April 2016, the CLC — as part of coalition of human rights, development and arms-control groups — endorsed an open letter to Trudeau that expressed profound concerns about issuing export permits for Canada’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia, <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/sites/amnesty/files/CanadaSaudiArabiaJointLetterPM25April16.pdf">“despite flagrant incompatibilities of this contract with the human rights safeguards of our export controls.”</a> The letter urged the prime minister to rescind this <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/saudi-arms-deal-breaks-canadas-export-controls-opponents-argue/article29769283/">“immoral and unethical” decision</a>. </p>
<p>Since then, the silence of the CLC has been deafening. </p>
<p>On this issue, Canada’s labour movement is uniquely situated to bring pressure to bear on the government. While Amnesty International, Oxfam Canada and other civil society organizations have called for the cancellation of the arms deal via the open letter, it is unionized Canadian workers in manufacturing plants, on railways and in ports who have the real power to stop the production and shipment of arms to the Saudi regime. </p>
<p>In the face of the global climate and migration crises, and in an era in which right-wing politicians demonize migrants and refugees while pushing an agenda of austerity, environmental destruction and war that drives displacement and migration, the CLC must stand for a green, peaceful socially just economy. Good jobs must not depend on developing, building and shipping machinery used to make war. </p>
<p>After all, manufacturing, rail and dock workers would likely prefer to be working on and transporting products central to the fight against climate change than weapons of war.</p>
<h2>Dockworkers lead the way</h2>
<p>Labour can and must be a voice for peace. Working with peace activists and human rights organizations, unions in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/03/25/why-germany-shouldnt-yield-arms-sales-saudis">Denmark, Finland, Germany and Norway have successfully pressured their respective governments to suspend Saudi arms transfers</a>. </p>
<p>And in the past few weeks, union dockworkers in the Italian port of Genoa and the French port of Marseilles made international headlines <a href="https://diem25.org/they-shall-not-pass/">when they refused to move, load or help ship military cargo destined for Saudi Arabia.</a> </p>
<p>Here in Canada in late December 2018, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 273 courageously refused to cross a picket line at the Saint John port where peace activists had assembled <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadians-like-to-think-of-themselves-as-peacemakers-the-saudi-arms/">to protest the arrival of a Saudi cargo ship scheduled to transport Canadian-made LAVs to their destination in Saudi Arabia</a>. Yet unlike union dockworkers in Europe, Local 273 received little in the way of solidarity from other unions. </p>
<p>The CLC must be a voice for peace and human rights and demand that the Canadian government immediately cancel its arms deal with Saudi Arabia and use its considerable resources to co-ordinate labour movement opposition to the deal. Yemen can’t wait.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Why is Canada’s labour movement so quiet on the Saudi arms deal? It should be a voice for peace and human rights and demand that the Canadian government immediately cancel the deal.
Simon Black, Assistant Professor of Labour Studies, Brock University
Anthony Fenton, PhD Candidate (ABD), York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/111128
2019-02-05T12:49:20Z
2019-02-05T12:49:20Z
Dear foreign secretary, here’s how to protect journalists and press freedom
<p>The British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, named the defence of media freedom as <a href="http://www.newsmediauk.org/Latest/hunt-makes-media-freedom-a-priority-for-2019">his signature policy</a>. He spoke of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 as a tragic case that prompted his decision and said he was “placing the resources of the Foreign Office behind the cause of media freedom”.</p>
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<p>Bold words. The foreign secretary has promised to confront countries that jail journalists without good reason and help to impose a “diplomatic price”. His aim, as he wrote in the <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/britain-champions-free-speech-so-we-re-leading-the-war-on-fake-news-a3977771.html">Evening Standard in November 2018</a>, is to bring together countries which believe in this cause to mobilise a consensus behind the protection of journalists.</p>
<p>Cynics will say these pledges are bound to fail at the first clash with the UK’s strategic or commercial interests. Some may wince at his assertion that post-Brexit Britain will be uniquely positioned to forge a chain of democracies to push back against threats to the rules-based international order. But Hunt’s campaign is an important acknowledgement of the link between violent acts to silence journalists and the corruption of state power leading in many places to the death of democracy.</p>
<p>The elephant traps on the way to implementing these promises are legion. But he is right to try. Here are six essentials he would do well to bear in mind in formulating joined up policies:</p>
<h1>1. It’s a deep-rooted problem</h1>
<p>In the past 12 years, UNESCO’s figures show, more than 1,000 journalists were killed because of their work. Most died simply doing their job of reporting on organised crime, corruption and abuses of power. The term “<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/01/30/privilege-violence-why-polarized-democracies-yield-violence-pub-67871">privileged violence</a>” is used by US national security expert Rachel Kleinfeld to explain this growing phenomenon. </p>
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<p>Kleinfeld’s book <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/11/06/savage-order-how-world-s-deadliest-countries-can-forge-path-to-security-pub-77045">A Savage Order</a> highlights a “dirty secret” – that casual deadly violence has become endemic in many countries, as corrupt figures of authority misuse their power to kill opponents or get corrupt police and court systems to brand them as criminals. Journalists are often in that line of fire. They may well be pincered between violent extremists or brutal drugs gangs or on one side and hostile law enforcement officers who see them as an “enemy” on the other.</p>
<p>The recent killings of journalists illustrate this pattern: Khashoggi was the victim <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/jamal-khashoggi-60971">of state-sponsored murder</a> after condemning his country’s rulers for making it into a “mental prison” with total information control. In Ghana, investigative journalist <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1528026/ghana-journalist-ahmed-hussein-suale-killed/">Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela</a> was shot dead after exposing corruption at the top levels of African football. Maltese journalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/16/murder-justice-daphne-caruana-galizia-malta">Daphne Caruana Galizia</a> was blown up in a car bomb attack after alleging high-level money laundering and bribery. The list is depressingly long.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerias-constitution-holds-the-key-to-protecting-internally-displaced-people-60971">Nigeria's constitution holds the key to protecting internally displaced people</a>
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</em>
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<h1>2. It’s going to take political capital</h1>
<p>Hunt’s initiative cannot succeed without politically painful steps to put the UK’s and its strategic allies’ own houses in order. British anti-terrorism laws and surveillance powers are seen as <a href="https://rsf.org/sites/default/files/rsf_counter-terrorism_and_border_security_bill_briefing_lords_oct_2018.pdf">failing to adequately safeguard</a> the legitimate work of journalists.</p>
<p>US army and military contractors have <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0267323114567273g">killed scores of journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan</a> with complete impunity. British ministers have remained silent as Turkey has <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/05/turkey-for-journalists-turkey-has-become-a-dungeon/">jailed well over 100 journalists</a> and abandoned any semblance of due legal process for critics of the government.</p>
<p>To be fair, Hunt <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/12/uk-jeremy-hunt-pressure-saudi-arabia-khashoggi-killing">visited Saudi Arabia</a> in the aftermath of Khashoggi’s murder – but it has since been reported that even as the foreign secretary was speaking out against the murder, UK trade officials were in the kingdom to discuss closer diplomatic ties and that arms deals <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/11/jamal-khashoggi-murder-britain-sells-arms-to-saudi-arabia">have been unaffected</a>. </p>
<h1>3. Attacks on journalists are justice issues</h1>
<p>International standards as expressed in <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/news/un-general-assembly-adopts-resolutions-protect-human-rights-online-journalists-and-human-rights">UN resolutions</a> and by the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23026&LangID=E">UN Human Rights Committee</a> require states to put in place effective measures of protection when journalists face serious threats, and to carry out thorough and impartial investigations after a journalist is killed.</p>
<p>Yet most killings follow repeated threats of violence, and the conviction rate in cases of journalist killings remains shockingly low – only about 15% of cases <a href="https://cpj.org/reports/2018/10/impunity-index-getting-away-with-murder-killed-justice.php">have resulted in a conviction</a>. Impunity still prevails over the killings of prominent journalists from Russian reporter <a href="https://cpj.org/data/people/anna-politkovskaya/">Anna Politkovskaya</a> and Sri Lankan newspaper editor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jan/13/wickrematunga-final-editorial-final-editorial">Lasantha Wickrematunge</a> more than a decade ago, to Caruana Galizia and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45684062">Jan Kuciak</a> in the past 18 months in Europe. The “unbreakable chain of democracies” envisaged by the foreign secretary cannot rest until the cultures of impunity that protect those who murder journalists have been swept away.</p>
<h1>4. Renew UK human rights pledges</h1>
<p>The post World War II framework of protections for press freedom and other basic rights was one of the great human achievements of the 20th century. The UK was a master builder of the system – for example by its early acceptance of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights. </p>
<p>More recent broadsides by British politicians, including by then <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/08/theresa-may-human-rights-abu-qatada">then home secretary Theresa May</a> in 2013, against rulings by the Strasbourg court have damaged the UK’s reputation as a champion of universal rights and have encouraged others to flaunt the system. British ministers should disavow them to regain credibility. The dreadful present record of most Council of Europe states in failing to provide legal protections for journalists under fire is documented in many official publications. The <a href="https://rm.coe.int/state-of-democracy-human-rights-and-the-rule-of-law-role-of-institutio/168086c0c5">most recent report</a> documented an adverse or deteriorating situation in 20 out of 47 member states in 2017.</p>
<p>A determined campaign by the UK and like-minded states to crack down on violence and judicial harassment of journalists across the European area should be a centrepiece of the new campaign.</p>
<h1>5. Speak out</h1>
<p>Because silence is the friend of the oppressors. In January 2019 the Strasbourg court ruled that the Azerbaijan authorities violated the rights to privacy and justice of investigative journalist <a href="https://eurasianet.org/azerbaijan-reporter-wins-sex-tape-case">Khadija Ismayilova</a> in an infamous “sex video” case from 2012 for its failure to investigate attempts to blackmail her with sex tapes. That same year, world-famous war reporter Marie Covin was killed while in the field in Syria. A US court recently called it a targeted killing and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/31/us-court-finds-assad-regime-liable-marie-colvin-death-homs-syria">found the Assad regime responsible</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257054/original/file-20190204-193229-p59jgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257054/original/file-20190204-193229-p59jgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257054/original/file-20190204-193229-p59jgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257054/original/file-20190204-193229-p59jgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257054/original/file-20190204-193229-p59jgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257054/original/file-20190204-193229-p59jgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257054/original/file-20190204-193229-p59jgs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Azerbaijani reporter Khadija Ismayilova who was subject to blackmail over covertly filmed tapes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aziz Karimov</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Too often the victims and their relatives feel unsupported. The UK is seen by others as a quasi superpower in media and human rights protection thanks to the country’s wealth of expert legal and development NGOs, universities and media and information networks. Governments and other stakeholders share a vital interest in exposing the merchants of disinformation and propaganda at home and abroad. </p>
<p>The UK should make smarter use of its standing in international bodies, and as the current chair in office of the Commonwealth to make election monitoring mechanisms more effective and call out political interference in democratic processes, the independence of judiciaries and the media landscape wherever they occur.</p>
<h1>6. Upgrade the toolkits of influence</h1>
<p>Governments everywhere have grabbed extra powers to create “information spheres” to their own advantage, often by authoritarian methods and scapegoating journalists as enemies or traitors – as with both US president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/16/trump-press-editorials-response-opposition-party">Donald Trump</a> and Turkish president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/13/when-it-comes-defending-press-president-erdogan-is-worlds-biggest-hypocrite/?utm_term=.9e69b73c6588">Recep Tayyip Erdoğan</a>. The task now is to re-win the arguments in favour of democratic checks and balances, particularly freedom of the press, which were assumed to be in the ascendant up to the end of the Cold War.</p>
<p>The UN has a wide-ranging <a href="https://en.unesco.org/un-plan-action-safety-journalists">Action Plan on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity</a>. The Council of Europe now cooperates with civil society organisations to run an <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/media-freedom/all-alerts">online platform</a> that challenges attacks on journalists and press freedom as they occur. </p>
<p>Other innovations such as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/world/18press.html">US Daniel Pearl Act</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/12/what-is-the-global-magnitsky-act-and-why-are-u-s-senators-invoking-this-on-saudi-arabia/?utm_term=.196062d88860">Global Magnitsky Act</a> arose in response to tragedy and to answer an evident need. The need is evident today, not only for journalists but for democratic societies everywhere. As Hunt rightly says, those values are under greater threat than at any time since the fall of the Berlin Wall.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111128/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Horsley is on the advisory board of the London bureau of Reporters Without Borders. He is also a board member of the Association of European Journalists.</span></em></p>
Jeremy Hunt says he will making press freedom a priority. Good for him There are a few things he can do immediately.
William Horsley, International Director, Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM), University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108591
2019-02-04T11:39:10Z
2019-02-04T11:39:10Z
Why Jamal Khashoggi’s murder took place in a consulate
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256714/original/file-20190131-108334-f2hxi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a 2014 press conference in Bahrain.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Hasan Jamali</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/10/alleged-saudi-hit-squad-linked-to-jamal-khashoggi-disappearance">an alleged Saudi “hit squad”</a> whose members have close ties to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. </p>
<p>I’m a scholar of culture, politics, law and socio-economics who studies what I call “<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28732">global borderlands</a>.” These are semi-autonomous places that are controlled by foreigners and where the laws that govern socioeconomic life differ from those that are outside its walls. </p>
<p>I believe that despite massive amounts of press attention, two important and related elements of Khashoggi’s murder remain underexamined.</p>
<p>First is the fact that his murder allegedly took place within a <a href="https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_no=iii-3&chapter=3&lang=en">consulate or embassy, a global borderland</a>. </p>
<p>Second is the fact that his alleged murderers included people traveling on diplomatic passports, who <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-10/diplomatic-immunity-clouds-jamal-khashoggi-case/10356566">were not entirely subject to the laws of the state – Turkey – they were visiting</a>.</p>
<p>These elements mean trying and punishing the alleged suspects in the Turkish, or even international, system is complicated – if not improbable.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256719/original/file-20190131-124043-1wth0oc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A security guard’s hand at the entrance to Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Oct. 12, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Turkey-Saudi-Arabia-Missing-Writer/dcfdd79ee14d46bfbeaef26f8b719efb/7/0">AP/Petros Giannakouris</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Long history of diplomatic immunity</h2>
<p>Diplomacy is the art of foreign relations. It has both a public and private face. </p>
<p>Official diplomats are representatives of the country that sends them to other countries, and they enjoy “diplomatic immunity,” which means they are exempt from the laws of the host country in which they are visiting.</p>
<p>This includes <a href="http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf">immunity</a> from any crime they commit in the host country. It also includes immunity from any civil or administrative laws, with a few key exceptions. </p>
<p>The practice of diplomats being granted immunity has a long history. Cultural anthropologist Jack Weatherford argues in his book, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/187628/genghis-khan-and-the-making-of-the-modern-world-by-jack-weatherford/9780609809648/">Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World</a>,” that Khan – in the 13th century – established diplomatic immunity for envoys and ambassadors throughout this empire, even for those from countries with which he was at war. </p>
<p>Historian Jeremy Black starts his book, “<a href="http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781861898319&m=205&dc=856">A History of Diplomacy,”</a> with the story of how the execution by Persian leader Muhammad II of Khan’s diplomatic envoy sparked a war. </p>
<p>Modern diplomatic privileges are outlined in the <a href="http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf">1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations</a>; <a href="https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_no=iii-3&chapter=3&lang=en">192 countries</a> follow its guidelines. </p>
<p>Diplomatic immunity also extends to <a href="http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf">the physical places</a> of a diplomatic mission – the embassy or consulate as well as the residence of the head of the mission. </p>
<p>These places are “inviolable,” or unable to be entered by officials from the host country without explicit consent by officials from the sending country. </p>
<p>Documents and diplomatic bags – and the courier who is traveling with them – are also not subject to search from officials of the host country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256721/original/file-20190131-109820-t1ueag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Turkish security barriers block the road to Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Oct. 28, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Turkey-Saudi-Arabia-Writer-Killed/204aa157e64048ff80547fe1dd910bd7/211/0">AP/Lefteris Pitarakis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Murder in a consulate</h2>
<p>A consulate is a symbol of the foreign state. It is governed by separate laws than those of the host state. Officials from the host state cannot enter a consulate property without permission. </p>
<p>These three facts help explain why Khashoggi was allegedly lured to and killed inside an embassy. There would be no fear about getting caught. Khashoggi could be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/europe/turkey-saudi-khashoggi-dismember.html">killed, beheaded and dismembered</a> with impunity. </p>
<p>Turkish authorities couldn’t enter the embassy without permission from Saudi Arabia. When Turkish officials were finally allowed to enter the consulate, it was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399">after cleaners already entered</a>. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-releases-passport-scans-of-men-it-says-were-involved-in-journalists-killing/2018/10/16/f425892e-d163-11e8-83d6-291fcead2ab1_story.html?utm_term=.24c272adf71a">Areas of the consulate were also reportedly repainted</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/turkish-official-says-police-found-evidence-in-saudi-consulate-that-jamal-khashoggi-was-killed-there-ap.html">Turkish officials were told certain areas of the consulate were off-limits</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/turkish-official-says-police-found-evidence-in-saudi-consulate-that-jamal-khashoggi-was-killed-there-ap.html">However, the cleaners may not have destroyed all the evidence</a>. </p>
<p>Turkish officials did search the nearby residence of the consul, which was where some of the vehicles that left the consulate drove to after Khashoggi was allegedly already killed. </p>
<p>Turkish officials also searched areas in the Belgrad forest and farmland in Yalova for Khashoggi’s remains because Saudi consulate vehicles were spotted heading that way <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399">on the day he was killed</a>. </p>
<h2>No prosecution</h2>
<p>Members of the Saudi team alleged to have committed the murder arrived shortly before, and left Istanbul almost immediately after, Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. Most members of the group traveled on regular passports, their bags were put through airport security and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-king-salman-khashoggi.html">some were searched by hand</a>. </p>
<p>But at least one member of the seven people returning to Saudi Arabia was carrying a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/turkey-releases-passport-scans-of-men-it-says-were-involved-in-journalists-killing/2018/10/16/f425892e-d163-11e8-83d6-291fcead2ab1_story.html?utm_term=.24c272adf71a">diplomatic passport, while two carried “special” government passports</a>, indicating official government and diplomatic status. </p>
<p>This status is why Hulusi Akar, Turkey’s defense minister, has stated that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-king-salman-khashoggi.html">Khashoggi’s remains may have been carried</a> out of the country in these bags – they were not subject to search.</p>
<p>The diplomatic immunity of some members of the alleged hit squad allowed them to leave quickly, not be subject to search and not be prosecuted by the Turkish criminal justice system. </p>
<p>There is one way they could be prosecuted: if Saudi Arabia <a href="http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf">waived the diplomatic agent’s immunity</a> and allowed them to be tried in Turkey. There is no sign that Saudi Arabia will do this. </p>
<p>Other members of the group, traveling on regular – not diplomatic – passports, also left quickly. Because they are now outside of Turkey, the Turkish government has been unable to bring any of these alleged suspects before their court system. Turkey requested extradition of these people, but <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46501472">Saudi Arabia refused to hand them over</a>.</p>
<p>The location of Khashoggi’s murder at a consulate appears purposeful, allowing the alleged murderers the time and inviolable space needed to kill him without any fear of interruption or interference from Turkish authorities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Reyes receives or has previously received funding from the American Sociological Association, National Science Foundation, and Institute of International Education</span></em></p>
Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder happened at a consulate, a space not subject to the laws of the host country, Turkey. That means the alleged murderers did not fear interference by local authorities.
Victoria Reyes, Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/109537
2019-01-13T14:14:20Z
2019-01-13T14:14:20Z
How governments use Big Data to violate human rights
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253250/original/file-20190110-43529-i5mge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women in totalitarian states are among those particularly at risk by government's use of Big Data to spy on its citizens.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Henry/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The right to privacy has become a pressing human rights issue. And rightly so. Big data — combined with artificial intelligence and facial recognition software — has the capacity to intrude on people’s lives in unprecedented ways, in some cases on a massive scale. </p>
<p>While much of the discussion has focused on how social media and tech companies use the data they collect about their users, more attention needs to be paid to the wider relationship between violations of privacy and other types of human rights abuses. </p>
<p>The reason is simple. Mass invasions of privacy can undermine the rights of millions, if not billions, of people around the world as governments gain a greater capacity to discriminate — or worse — across gender and sexuality lines, and stifle dissent, including through violence. More about this in a moment. </p>
<p>So what can be done to limit the human rights fallout? What we need is a multi-pronged approach that involves civil society, the private sector, foundations and states. </p>
<h2>Establishing human rights funds</h2>
<p>First, foundations that support human rights should establish human rights and technology funds. Activists are already harnessing new technologies to monitor and document abuses. Amnesty International is working with a data analysis company to quantify levels of <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/03/online-violence-against-women-chapter-1/">misogyny on Twitter</a>. This type of innovation should be encouraged <em>and</em> resourced.</p>
<p>Second, states should negotiate new norms and laws for the digital age. The <a href="https://www.montrealdeclaration-responsibleai.com/the-declaration">Montreal Declaration on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence</a> offers a powerful statement on the need for the ethical development of new technologies. Similarly, the UN Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy is leading efforts to develop what’s been called a “<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Privacy/SR_Privacy/2018AnnualReportAppendix7.pdf">Draft Legal Instrument on Government-led Surveillance and Privacy</a>.” These initiatives, and others like them, should be supported. </p>
<p>Third, states must reaffirm the principle of the right to asylum. States that use technology to violate human rights will displace people. Those with a well-founded fear of persecution will need protection. </p>
<p>Finally, states that believe in a rules-based international order must redouble efforts to tackle impunity. Human rights abuses occur because those who commit the violations are rarely held to account. This needs to change.</p>
<h2>‘Grave consequences’</h2>
<p>Failure to check invasions of privacy enabled by technology will have grave consequences. Here are four examples that illustrate this point.</p>
<p><strong>Women’s Rights:</strong> Surveillance technologies are often used to police morality, especially in places where there is no clear distinction between “sin” and law. </p>
<p>Take Saudi Arabia. In 2017, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/saudi-arabia">Human Rights Watch</a> reported that Saudi courts are using the “vague provisions” in the anti-cybercrime law to “sanction people suspected of committing sexual relations outside marriage, including adultery, extramarital and homosexual sex.”</p>
<p>Women are paying a disproportionately high price for these intrusions. </p>
<p><strong>LGBTQ Rights:</strong> According to the <a href="https://ilga.org/ilga-state-sponsored-homophobia-report-2017">International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)</a>, 72 countries prohibit same-sex relations. Surveillance technologies give governments the ability to “out” individuals. They know where people sleep at night, and with whom. The potential for lives to be destroyed is very great, indeed.</p>
<p><strong>Torture:</strong> The governments that violate privacy to suppress minorities are often the same governments that will not think twice about using torture to maintain control of their citizens. <a href="https://www.ifex.org/syria/2017/01/10/building_syria_surveillance_state/">Syria is a case in point</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253251/original/file-20190110-43525-3zv66f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253251/original/file-20190110-43525-3zv66f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253251/original/file-20190110-43525-3zv66f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253251/original/file-20190110-43525-3zv66f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253251/original/file-20190110-43525-3zv66f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253251/original/file-20190110-43525-3zv66f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253251/original/file-20190110-43525-3zv66f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In this January 2011 photo, murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks on his cellphone at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Virginia Mayo</span></span>
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<p><strong>Extrajudicial Executions:</strong> If governments can track their citizens’ movements, it is not difficult to have them assassinated. The Jamal Khashoggi killing is a tragic example of this. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/world/middleeast/saudi-khashoggi-spyware-israel.html"><em>New York Times</em></a> has reported that the Saudis used the Pegasus spying software to eavesdrop on Khashoggi, thus enabling his murder. </p>
<p>Other governments could interpret a lack of any meaningful response as permission to target journalists. This is not a hypothetical concern. <a href="https://www.ifex.org/international/2018/12/22/press-freedom-2018/">According to IFEX</a>, an organization dedicated to protecting free expression, 78 journalists were murdered in 2018, and another 159 were imprisoned. </p>
<p>This is not hyperbole. States of all stripes are collecting data on their citizens, and have been for quite some time. This is not going to end any time soon. Quite the opposite. </p>
<p>If left unchecked, invasions of privacy enabled by technology could put every other human right at risk, and on a scale that would be truly terrifying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Thompson is a senior fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo. From 2011 to 2017, he served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International Canada. </span></em></p>
If left unchecked, invasions of privacy enabled by technology could put every human right at risk, and on a scale that would be truly terrifying.
Andrew Thompson, Adjunct Assistant Professor Political Science, and Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/108669
2018-12-12T03:03:46Z
2018-12-12T03:03:46Z
Four journalists, one newspaper: Time Magazine’s Person of the Year recognises the global assault on journalism
<p>Time Magazine has just announced its <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-12/time-magazine-person-of-the-year/10608814">“Person of the Year”</a> for 2018, and for once, it isn’t one person. This time it is four people and a newspaper.</p>
<p>Collectively calling them “The Guardians”, Time has awarded the accolade to the murdered Saudi journalist <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399">Jamal Khashoggi</a>, Filipino journalist <a href="https://www.rappler.com/nation/218725-maria-ressa-other-journalists-named-time-person-of-the-year-2018">Maria Ressa</a> who edits the Rappler news website, two young Reuters journalists <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-journalists-trial-specialrepo/special-report-how-myanmar-punished-two-reporters-for-uncovering-an-atrocity-idUSKCN1LJ167">Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo</a> currently serving seven-year sentences for exposing a massacre in Myanmar, and the staff of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-29/maryland-newspaper-shooting-at-least-five-people-dead/9922686">The Capital Gazette</a> newspaper in the American town of Annapolis, Maryland, who continued publishing after five of their colleagues were gunned down in an attack in June.</p>
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<p>Time’s Person of the Year cover is reserved for those who the magazine judges have had “the greatest impact on the news”, and not always for the better (it famously nominated Adolf Hitler in 1938). Its decision to name a collection of journalists is a marker not just of the impact those individuals have made, but a nod to the wider global crisis of confidence in journalism and “the truth”. The nominees are there partly for what they have done, but also for what they have come to represent. </p>
<p>Khashoggi is undoubtedly the best known of the group. The grim details of his assassination, in which he was lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get documents for his marriage before he was strangled and dismembered with a bone saw, are as compelling as any airport novel. But they also exposed the cynicism of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has tried to present himself as Saudi Arabia’s Western-friendly liberal saviour while ruthlessly and illiberally cracking down on dissenters.</p>
<p>As Khashoggi himself once asked in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/10/06/read-jamal-khashoggis-columns-for-the-washington-post/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c0b95d90ae16">a Washington Post column</a>:</p>
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<p>Must we choose between movie theatres and our rights as citizens to speak out, whether in support of or critical of our government’s actions?</p>
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<p>Maria Ressa is less well-known but no less courageous. A former CNN correspondent, she co-founded Rappler seven years ago, building it into one of the most trusted independent sources of news in The Philippines.</p>
<p>Rappler has fearlessly covered President Duterte’s authoritarian edicts, including his war on drugs that has taken an estimated 12,000 lives. In the process, she has weathered a storm of assaults from Duterte himself and his army of online trolls. She now faces up to 10 years in prison on<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/philippines-journalist-maria-ressa-turn-herself-in-police-warrant-rappler"> tax evasion charges</a> that seem contrived not to punish financial crimes but silence a vital critical voice.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-in-the-name-of-security-secrecy-surveillance-and-journalism-105486">Book: In the name of security - secrecy, surveillance and journalism</a>
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<p>Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo produced one of the most <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rakhine-events/">impressive pieces of journalism of 2017</a>, investigating the murder of ten Rohingya Muslim men with forensic attention to detail. They unearthed a series of photographs of the victims and their killers, and were able to piece together a detailed narrative so compelling that the authorities were forced to imprison the soldiers responsible for 10 years. For their work, the Reuters journalists were also arrested for violating the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years. (A police officer testified in court that they framed the journalists.)</p>
<p>And The Capital Gazette? A few hours after a gunman burst into the newspaper’s offices and murdered five staffers, one of its reporters, Chase Cook, tweeted: “I can tell you this. We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow”. The paper did exactly that. </p>
<p>It was not producing the kind of work that might attract a murderous response. It is a local rag that covers council elections and school sports, not autocrats and genocide. And yet the press is now so demonised that a reader felt justified in shooting it up for its reporting of his own court case. </p>
<p>From the local to the global, these examples expose the way one of the most fundamental pillars of a free, liberal society - journalism itself - is under assault. </p>
<p>The digital revolution is partly to blame. It has created a firehose of information that has enabled us to find “news” that confirms whatever we want to believe. In the process, it has eroded trust in the media and enabled anyone who squirms under its spotlight to dismiss it as “fake”. In the process, our capacity to hold informed, rational public debate has been dangerously undermined.</p>
<p>Make no mistake. This is a global crisis that strikes at the foundations of democracy, which is why Time’s decision is so timely and important.</p>
<p>Journalists are not without fault. News is a messy, imperfect human construct, and in the rush to create stories that stand out from the digital noise, standards have slipped. But the verbal and physical assaults on news agencies and their staff fail to acknowledge the professionalism that so many bring to their craft. The difference between fake news and the real thing is that good journalists acknowledge errors and correct them fast.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-investigative-journalists-are-using-social-media-to-uncover-the-truth-66393">How investigative journalists are using social media to uncover the truth</a>
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<p>The Time cover also demands a response. If we do nothing, we will end up heading further down a path that nobody but the authoritarians are happy with. Even in Australia, where national security laws have dramatically limited the ability of journalists to keep watch over government, the problems are acute and deteriorating. That is why a group of colleagues and I have set up the <a href="https://www.journalistsfreedom.com/">Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom</a> to advocate for media freedom in the broadest sense - the ability to work free of unnecessarily restrictive laws, in a financial environment that supports independent quality news. </p>
<p>The questions are huge. How do we balance the democratic need for transparency and accountability, with the demands of national security? How do we pay for journalism that is costly and necessary but not always commercially viable? How do we restore trust in an institution that underpins the way our society and our government works?</p>
<p>The AJF has partnered with the University of Queensland, where I am UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communication, to work on research that tackles some of these most pressing problems. </p>
<p>If we do nothing, we can expect to see a lot more cases like Jamal Khashoggi, Maria Ressa, The Capital Gazette or Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. I suspect that is a world few of us would relish.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof. Peter Greste is UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communications at the University of Queensland. He is also a founding member and spokesman for the Alliance for Journalists Freedom. </span></em></p>
The four people and a newspaper who are Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” have been given the acknowledgment not just for what they have done, but for what they have come to represent.
Peter Greste, Professor of Journalism and Communications, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106534
2018-12-09T19:09:24Z
2018-12-09T19:09:24Z
Human rights in 2018 – ten issues that made headlines
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248931/original/file-20181205-186079-aeftkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rohingya women and children being moved on a truck south of Yangon, Myanmar.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Lynn Bo Bo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On December 10, the world marks 70 years since the adoption of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>. Regrettably, instead of the anniversary signalling the enduring impact of human rights, some are fearing the “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/09/the-end-of-human-rights-genocide-united-nations-r2p-terrorism/">end of human rights</a>”. Here we highlight some of the rights challenges that captured the world’s attention this year, illustrating the struggle to secure human rights is far from over.</p>
<p><strong>1. Australia’s first year on the UN Human Rights Council</strong></p>
<p>Australia took its place on the UN Human Rights Council this year for a three-year term. Australia delivered a <a href="https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2018/mp_mr_181001.aspx">strong statement</a> about Myanmar’s atrocities against ethnic Rohingya Muslims, but was criticised for holding refugees and asylum seekers offshore. While Australia supported important country resolutions, it failed to take a leadership role on any key issues.</p>
<p><strong>2. United States’ retreat from Human Rights Council</strong></p>
<p>The US faced international condemnation when it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/19/us-quits-un-human-rights-council-cesspool-political-bias">quit the Human Rights Council</a>, calling it a “protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of political bias”. The US has long complained of the council’s perceived bias against Israel. But, by withdrawing, the US decreased its options for confronting and addressing human rights violators. This increases the responsibility of governments like Australia’s to ensure the council addresses the world’s most serious human rights violations.</p>
<p><strong>3. Violence against women</strong></p>
<p>In Australia, while the #MeToo movement has spurred women to come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and abuse, a number of high-profile cases of alleged sexual harassment by actors and politicians highlighted ongoing barriers to justice for victims. At the same time, the #countingdeadwomen femicide index reports that one woman in Australia is killed every week by an intimate partner. </p>
<p><strong>4. Facebook’s reckoning</strong></p>
<p>Free speech, privacy and electoral integrity came under the microscope in March, when a former employee of Cambridge Analytica blew the whistle on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cambridge-analyticas-facebook-targeting-model-really-worked-according-to-the-person-who-built-it-94078">its practice of harvesting data</a> from millions of US Facebook users in an effort to influence the 2016 presidential elections. </p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica was also <a href="https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/243009/Report-on-Investigation-Leave.EU.pdf">investigated in the UK</a> for a possible role in the Brexit referendum. </p>
<p>There is also <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/">growing criticism of Facebook</a> for not doing enough to stop its use to spread hate speech. For example, in Myanmar it has been used as a tool to incite violence against Rohingya. </p>
<p><strong>5. Rohingya crisis</strong></p>
<p>In August, a UN Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar, which included Australian human rights expert Chris Sidoti, delivered a scathing <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/MyanmarFFM/Pages/ReportoftheMyanmarFFM.aspx">report</a> detailing crimes against humanity, war crimes, sexual violence and possible genocide by Myanmar’s security forces against the Rohingya.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-the-un-has-found-myanmars-military-committed-genocide-against-the-rohingya-102251">Explainer: why the UN has found Myanmar’s military committed genocide against the Rohingya</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>The UN Human Rights Council, in response, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-un/u-n-sets-up-body-to-prepare-myanmar-atrocity-prosecution-files-idUSKCN1M71W0">created a mechanism</a> to collect and preserve evidence to aid future prosecutions for atrocity crimes in Myanmar. Australia joined other Western nations in imposing targeted sanctions on military officers named in the UN report. While the Australian government maintains an arms embargo on Myanmar, our defence forces continue to provide training to the Myanmar military.</p>
<p><strong>6. Crackdown against Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang</strong></p>
<p>Turkic Muslims in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region have long faced repression. In 2018, Human Rights Watch and others <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideological-viruses/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs">reported</a> an escalation in this repression with the government detaining 1 million people in political re-education camps, with evidence of their torture and mistreatment. Muslims not detained still face pervasive controls on freedom of movement and religion. The Foreign Affairs Department revealed <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-25/three-australians-were-detained-in-chinas-xinjiang-camps/10429116">under parliamentary questioning</a> that three Australians were detained in the camps. </p>
<p><strong>7. Saudi Arabia</strong></p>
<p>Saudi Arabia made international headlines when a prominent journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The case prompted a closer examination of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. The country’s repression, imprisonment and ill-treatment of activists includes the alleged torture of leading women’s rights defenders.</p>
<p>In Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition has committed <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/02/yemen-coalition-bus-bombing-apparent-war-crime">many violations of international humanitarian law</a>, including apparent war crimes, killing thousands of civilians. Millions of Yemenis are confronting a famine, in part because of restrictions on aid delivery. Yet the USA, UK, France and Australia sell the Saudi government weapons and military equipment that may well contribute to its Yemen campaign. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248916/original/file-20181205-100844-18bn7p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248916/original/file-20181205-100844-18bn7p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248916/original/file-20181205-100844-18bn7p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248916/original/file-20181205-100844-18bn7p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248916/original/file-20181205-100844-18bn7p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248916/original/file-20181205-100844-18bn7p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248916/original/file-20181205-100844-18bn7p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millions of Yemenis are facing a famine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yarya Arhab/AAP/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>8. Children off Nauru</strong></p>
<p>Australia’s government <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-children-are-airlifted-from-nauru-a-cruel-and-inhumane-policy-may-finally-be-ending-105487">appeared to respond</a> to the “Kids Off Nauru” campaign launched by civil society groups, medical professionals and lawyers. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-06/morrison-slams-shorten-on-border-control/10589114">December figures</a> show ten refugee children remain on the island, down from 119 children in August.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-children-are-airlifted-from-nauru-a-cruel-and-inhumane-policy-may-finally-be-ending-105487">As children are airlifted from Nauru, a cruel and inhumane policy may finally be ending</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Mounting political pressure forced the government to remove children who had been transferred there in 2013 and 2014, though many were removed from Nauru only after legal proceedings were started. But the departure of families makes the situation even more desperate for the adults left behind. And those transferred to Australia are told they will not remain permanently, keeping them in limbo. </p>
<p><strong>9. One year since the Uluru statement</strong></p>
<p>Indigenous communities have fought hard throughout 2018 to have the federal government focus on the <a href="https://www.referendumcouncil.org.au/event/uluru-statement-from-the-heart">Uluru Statement from the Heart</a>, after the Turnbull government dismissed it out of hand in 2017.</p>
<p>The statement calls for a constitutionally enshrined “First Nations Voice” in parliament and the establishment of a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/makarrata-explainer-yolngu-word-more-than-synonym-for-treaty/8790452">Makarrata Commission</a> to supervise agreement-making between governments and First Nations, and facilitate truth-telling of First Nations’ histories. These steps were seen as laying the foundation for a treaty with Australia’s First Nations peoples. A <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Constitutional_Recognition_2018/ConstRecognition/Final_Report/section?id=committees%2freportjnt%2f024213%2f26813">2018 parliamentary committee</a> endorsed the need for a voice in parliament and has called for a process of co-design between Indigenous people and government appointees.</p>
<p><strong>10. LGBTI discrimination</strong></p>
<p>One year on from the breakthrough on marriage equality, the parliamentary year ended with Australia’s politicians unable to find a way to remove legislative exemptions allowing religious schools to discriminate against <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/heartbroken-law-to-end-discrimination-against-lgbti-students-delayed-until-next-year-20181205-p50kal.html">LGBTI pupils and teachers</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/political-impasse-stops-protection-for-lgbt-students-passing-this-year-108272">Political impasse stops protection for LGBT students passing this year</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.hrlc.org.au/news/2018/12/5/morrison-bill-leaves-lgbt-students-at-risk-of-discrimination">Advocates</a> and the Labor opposition rejected government amendments that sought to stop schools being able to exclude students on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics, but would also allow them to enforce rules in line with their religious teachings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106534/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Chappell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elaine Pearson is Australia Director of Human Rights Watch. </span></em></p>
The issues that captured the world’s attention this year show the struggle to secure human rights is far from over.
Louise Chappell, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute; Professor of Law, UNSW Sydney
Elaine Pearson, Adjunct Lecturer in Law, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107782
2018-11-28T21:56:50Z
2018-11-28T21:56:50Z
Canada’s moral negligence in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247762/original/file-20181128-32191-1m7m59u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this October 2018, photo, candles lit by activists protesting the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi are placed outside Saudi Arabia's Consulate in Istanbul.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the CIA <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/11/16/world/europe/16reuters-saudi-khashoggi-cia.html">announced</a> that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman likely ordered the brutal killing of <em>Washington Post</em> journalist Jamal Khashoggi, my colleagues and I published an <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-red-line-crossed-jamal-khashoggis-life-cannot-be-sacrificed-for/">opinion piece</a> in a Canadian newspaper. We were critical of our government’s response, which doubles down on its rhetoric of “human rights” while failing to take any concrete action. </p>
<p>“We will continue to stand up for Canadian values and indeed for universal values and human rights at any occasion,” Prime Minister Trudeau <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-morning-update-trudeau-says-canada-will-stand-up-for-human-rights/">said in August</a>.</p>
<p>“Continue”? And “at any occasion?” But why not now, and on this occasion?</p>
<p>Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-chrystia-freeland-says-canada-very-troubled-by-disappearance-of/">has offered an explanation</a> that she framed as morally virtuous: “When it comes to existing contracts, our government believes strongly that Canada’s word has to matter.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247761/original/file-20181128-32203-1p5y62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247761/original/file-20181128-32203-1p5y62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247761/original/file-20181128-32203-1p5y62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247761/original/file-20181128-32203-1p5y62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247761/original/file-20181128-32203-1p5y62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247761/original/file-20181128-32203-1p5y62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247761/original/file-20181128-32203-1p5y62.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trudeau and Freeland are seen at a news conference on the new North American free-trade deal in Oct. 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Canada’s $14.8 billion contract to sell armoured combat vehicles to Saudi Arabia could not be jeopardized. Cancelling it would carry penalties somewhere in the range of “<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/penalty-for-cancelling-saudi-arms-contract-in-the-billions-trudeau-1.4150003">billions of dollars</a>,” the prime minister tells us. And besides, this deal will reportedly create <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-saudi-arms-deal-what-weve-learned-so-far/article28180299/">3,000 jobs</a> over 14 years in southwestern Ontario. This too is significant. But the trade-off is stark: the death of some in exchange for the livelihood of others. This can be none other than what we called a “sacrificial economy.” </p>
<h2>‘Everybody knows’</h2>
<p>If I could choose a soundtrack for the Jamal Khashoggi affair, it would be the ghostly voice of Leonard Cohen singing “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lin-a2lTelg">Everybody Knows</a>.” The refrain is familiar. Everybody knows about Canada’s lucrative armoured vehicle contract with the Saudi regime. Everybody knows the deal is rotten.</p>
<p>Everybody knows that these are weapons and do not serve the same humanitarian purposes as books or pharmaceuticals or grain. Everybody knows that they deliver death and destitution and that they have helped to produce what the United Nations <a href="https://news.un.org/en/focus/yemen">has called</a> the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time in Yemen. </p>
<p>Everybody knows that a <em>Washington Post</em> journalist is not the only victim of these economies — there are countless dead who have no voice, and it is especially tragic that someone positioned to speak on their behalf was himself assassinated.</p>
<p>Everybody knows — or should know — that in 2017 alone, Canada sold just under <a href="http://www.international.gc.ca/controls-controles/report-rapports/mil-2017.aspx?lang=eng">$500 million</a> worth of guns, training gear, imaging and countermeasure equipment, bombs, rockets, drones and unspecified chemical or biological agents to Saudi Arabia. We have also sold guided missiles to Bahrain, and different weapons to the United Arab Emirates — both of which support Saudi military action in Yemen. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247673/original/file-20181128-32230-rtt2ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247673/original/file-20181128-32230-rtt2ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247673/original/file-20181128-32230-rtt2ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247673/original/file-20181128-32230-rtt2ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247673/original/file-20181128-32230-rtt2ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247673/original/file-20181128-32230-rtt2ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247673/original/file-20181128-32230-rtt2ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, LAV 6.0 armoured vehicle like the ones sold to Saudi Arabia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gdlscanada.com/products/LAV/LAV-6.0.html">Sgt. Jean-Francois Lauzé, © 2016 DND-MDN Canada</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have also sold military <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-selling-helicopters-to-philippines-military-despite-human-rights-concerns/article37874305/">helicopters</a> to Rodrigo Duterte’s regime in the Philippines. The list goes on. So even if one Saudi contract is cancelled, not much is likely to change.</p>
<h2>Dice are loaded</h2>
<p>But even without these details, everybody knows that the dice are loaded. In my research, I examine the ethical relationship between the modern state’s power to “make live” and “let die” — which also means indirect killing. This is what the French philosopher <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312422660">Michel Foucault called “biopolitics,” a deadly and differential politics</a> where life itself is both the means and the end of political power. </p>
<p>Sacrificial deaths go by many euphemisms: collateral damages (in war), opportunity costs or negative externalities (in economics). But negative “externality” is misleading here. The negation of life, or “letting die,” is <em>internal</em> to this general economy, a moral economy that silently underpins the rules of international law, diplomacy and trade. Everybody knows, but nobody knows what to do with this knowledge. </p>
<p>It is, then, as if Khashoggi’s murder — along with innumerable others less spectacular or publicized — are factored in as a tolerable threshold of death in the name of life and livelihood. This is not new, but the scale of mass destruction and its technological automation should give us pause as we contemplate the roboticization of weapons and algorithmic warfare.</p>
<p>The sacrificial economy has its own sinister principles of accounting. As British intellectual and forensic architect Eyal Weizman has documented in <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2464-the-least-of-all-possible-evils"><em>The Least of All Possible Evils</em></a>, the U.S. military has tolerable thresholds of civilian deaths for each military death; Israeli blockades in Gaza have counted the calories of food entering Gaza, based on average per-person consumption (2,100 calories per male and 1,700 per female). </p>
<h2>Violence as virtue</h2>
<p>Violence is framed as a moral virtue, obeying “proportionality” or the “humanitarian minimum.” Outside the theatres of war, and in the Canadian context, what is the tolerable threshold of carbon emissions and climate change to sell our oil, or the tolerable threshold of First Nations communities without access to clean drinking water? More sacrifice.</p>
<p>It would be unjust to blame Trudeau or Freeland entirely for our sacrificial economy. As Cohen writes, “That’s how it goes / Everybody knows.” </p>
<p>But there is, still, the matter of Canada’s word, our collective values and the willingness of each Canadian to remain complicit or to knowingly resist. Khashoggi’s death is significant not just for its attack on the freedom of the press, but because it occasions a grave conversation on the relationship between our livelihood as Canadians and the countless deaths that this livelihood calls for and quietly condones.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart J. Murray receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>
Ottawa’s response to Jamal Khashoggi’s murder doubles down on “human rights” rhetoric while failing to take action. It’s a matter of the death of some in exchange for the livelihood of others.
Stuart J. Murray, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Rhetoric and Ethics, Carleton University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107419
2018-11-28T11:41:18Z
2018-11-28T11:41:18Z
Trump, Saudi Arabia and the Khashoggi case: What would Obama have done?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247586/original/file-20181127-76761-14p1n8b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-No-Ambassadors/e7401a29a6d145069edec9a3ebeb04fc/28/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After weeks of ratcheting tension about who authorized the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Donald Trump sought to put an end to the debate. </p>
<p>He issued a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-standing-saudi-arabia/">blunt public statement</a> asserting that “we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi,” and instead he identified a much larger concern for the U.S. </p>
<p>Trump warned that Saudi Arabia is a key ally against terrorism and the “largest oil producing nation in the world.” Therefore, U.S. interests demand that it remain close partners with the Saudis.</p>
<p>Trump’s pronouncement met with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/world/middleeast/trump-saudi-khashoggi.html">widespread disapproval</a> from both Republicans and Democrats as well as internationally. </p>
<p>But some foreign policy experts offer an <a href="https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabia-is-a-repressive-regime-and-so-are-a-lot-of-us-allies-105106">alternative explanation</a>. They maintain that the U.S. has a long history of allying itself with autocrats and dictators and Trump’s approach is not a drastic departure from existing U.S. foreign policy norms. Instead, Trump’s cardinal sin has been to state explicitly what had been understood implicitly. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/bureau/227102.htm">former State Department official</a> overseeing democracy and human rights programs, and now as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OgVZmm4AAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of foreign policy and international relations</a>, I believe this argument oversimplifies the complex relationship between interests and values in U.S. foreign policy over the last century.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247588/original/file-20181127-76767-p9082a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Franklin D. Roosevelt, left, reportedly said of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza, right, that ‘Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/d232505e84964c4a9e763805ca76acc2/4/0">AP file photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Roosevelt the realist, Wilson the idealist</h2>
<p>Since the start of the 20th century, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13510347.2010.501176">U.S. foreign policy has vacillated</a> between the “pragmatic realism” of Teddy Roosevelt and the “democratic idealism” of Woodrow Wilson. </p>
<p>For realists, international affairs is what <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/26/one-world-rival-theories/">scholar Jack Snyder calls</a> a “struggle for power among self-interested states.” In contrast, liberalists or idealists believe that nations forge ties through trade, finance and shared democratic norms, leading to progress in relations between states. </p>
<p>It’s true that the U.S. has often thrown its weight behind tyrants and authoritarians. For example, President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/general-somoza-takes-over-nicaragua">allegedly said Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza</a> “may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” </p>
<p>Other authoritarian leaders supported by the U.S. include <a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/11/08/16/marcos-a-us-backed-dictator-with-charisma">Philippines strongman Ferdinand Marcos</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/31/us.egypt.response/index.html">Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak</a> and Pakistani President <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yahya-Khan">Yahya Khan</a>.</p>
<p>But there are many countervailing examples of U.S. interest in human rights and democratic ideals abroad. Following the conclusion of World War II, the U.S. helped establish the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which sets out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, and chartered the United Nations, which provides peace and security through cooperation, not war.</p>
<p>More recently, the U.S. led efforts to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/decision-to-intervene-how-the-war-in-bosnia-ended/">stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia</a> and forestall <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2011/05/19/the-lessons-of-libya">mass civilian atrocities in Libya</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Diplomacy/Henry-Kissinger/9780671510992">Most experts agree</a> that Wilson’s strand of foreign policy idealism has eclipsed Roosevelt’s realism.</p>
<p>As former Secretary of State <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Diplomacy/Henry-Kissinger/9780671510992">Henry Kissinger writes</a>, Roosevelt’s realist “approach to international affairs died with him in 1919; no significant school of American thought on foreign policy has invoked him since. On the other hand, it is surely the measure of Wilson’s intellectual triumph that even Richard Nixon … considered himself above all a disciple of Wilson’s internationalism.” </p>
<p>Even the most hawkish U.S. presidents have incorporated a strong moral component into their foreign policy. </p>
<p>Ronald Reagan’s strategy in the Cold War was to <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/dictatorships-double-standards/">encourage anti-communist resistance around the world</a>. Under the Reagan doctrine, it did not matter whether the U.S. supported cold-blooded tyrants or murderous dictators, so long as they served as a hedge against communist encroachment.</p>
<p>However, Reagan painted this strategy in moral terms, not just transactionally. He deeply believed that the most serious threats to human rights came from totalitarian communists. </p>
<p>As scholars <a href="https://www.routledge.com/International-Human-Rights-5th-Edition/Donnelly-Whelan/p/book/9780813349480">Jack Donnelly and Daniel J. Whelan</a> observe, “For the Reagan administration, global strategic rivalry with the Soviet Union was a struggle for human rights, regardless of the actual human rights practices of the governments in question.” </p>
<p>This did not make U.S. support of dictators morally justifiable. But it does show that human rights received due attention when formulating U.S. policy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247592/original/file-20181127-76746-14rmjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=668&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anti-communism drove President Reagan’s foreign policy. He’s seen here in 1987, imploring Russian leader Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, which is in the background.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama-at-the-Podium/d361ecc7838f4d849e3e4e55d45d16b9/19/0">AP Photo/Ira Schwartz, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>If Obama had faced the Khashoggi murder</h2>
<p>Would President Obama have adopted a different approach to Saudi Arabia and the Khashoggi murder? </p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/31/magazine/yemen-war-saudi-arabia.html">foreign policy specialists point out</a> that under Obama, the U.S. approved Saudi Arabia initiating a brutal war in Yemen due to larger strategic priorities. What were those priorities? To stay in good graces with a critical regional ally and maintain a bulwark against Iranian ambition. </p>
<p>The current predicament is rooted in decisions made by Obama, in particular providing too much leeway to the Saudi crown prince. But the similarities stop there. </p>
<p>Based on how the Obama administration managed other vexing partners in the region – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-egypt-obama-balances-short-term-wants-against-long-term-goals/2013/08/17/025cfe36-0695-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html?utm_term=.7c57ad5348a3">such as Egypt</a>, where it had to balance keeping the country as a security partner while admonishing it for human rights violations – I believe U.S. policy likely would have followed an alternative path.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247594/original/file-20181127-76752-1376zvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Barack Obama shakes hands with Saudi Arabia’s then-Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef in the White House in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obama-Arab-Summit/44f016a0df964f499330bde5ae454af2/21/0">AP/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, the Obama administration would have consistently condemned Saudi actions. </p>
<p>It is hard to imagine Obama publicly contradicting a high-level intelligence report from the CIA pinning culpability on the Saudis, <a href="http://time.com/5462128/donald-trump-disputes-cia-saudi-prince-khashoggi/">as President Trump has done</a>. In fact, it is highly unlikely that such an intelligence leak would have happened at all under Obama’s watch – he always gave serious attention to recommendations from his bureaucracy. </p>
<p>Second, Obama would have pursued a more nuanced approach by making more deliberate use of existing diplomatic and economic tools to signal concern to the Saudis.</p>
<p>President Trump asserts that the U.S. either had to cut ties with Saudi or give them a free pass. That is a false choice. </p>
<p>The U.S. has many <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-10-15/use-and-misuse-economic-statecraft">intermediate measures</a> at its disposal – such as halting arms sales and increasingly punitive sanctions. Obama would have taken fuller advantage of these instruments.</p>
<p>Third, while Obama would have taken pains to preserve the relationship, he would have quietly sent a franker message to Saudi Arabia: Such behavior is intolerable, there must be accountability and this cannot happen again. For example, in response to the execution of 47 prisoners, former deputy national security adviser <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/jamal-khashoggi-and-us-saudi-relationship/572905/">Ben Rhodes recalls</a>, “In blunt language, Obama protested these actions, and warned the king that Saudi Arabia’s human-rights record was going to bring greater international isolation.”</p>
<p>What Obama would not have done is publicly assert that the only <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/21528/trump-s-reckless-and-dangerous-plan-to-abandon-values-in-u-s-foreign-policy">values worth defending</a> are national interests. And that powerful – and rich – countries will receive preferential treatment from the U.S. even if they commit egregious human rights violations such as murder.</p>
<p>Trump has unmistakably set the U.S. down a road that breaks longstanding foreign policy precedent. His implicit endorsement of Saudi Arabia’s reckless behavior runs the risk of emboldening other leaders to pursue similar policies. </p>
<p>And Trump’s basis for letting Saudi Arabia off the hook – its strategic importance – is shaky. Many experts <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/3ba8a1_5e9019d625e84087af647e6cb91ea3e2.pdf">rightly point out</a> that Saudi’s usefulness to the U.S. is limited and Saudi’s regional standing is exceptionally dependent on U.S. support. </p>
<p>So why give away U.S. leverage for free and dispense with decades of policy precedence based on a flimsy premise? That is something only Trump can answer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Feldstein is affiliated as a nonresident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and is a former official in the Obama administration</span></em></p>
President Trump says an alliance with Saudi Arabia is necessary, despite evidence the country’s crown prince ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Steven Feldstein, Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs & Associate Professor, School of Public Service, Boise State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106543
2018-11-09T04:31:03Z
2018-11-09T04:31:03Z
Saudi Arabia’s influence in Southeast Asia – too embedded to be disrupted?
<p>The revelation of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder inside the Saudi Arabia embassy in Turkey is harming Saudi Arabia’s international relations, including with Muslim majority Southeast Asian countries Malaysia and Indonesia. </p>
<p>Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad <a href="https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/08/06/putrajaya-shuts-down-saudi-backed-anti-terrorism-centre/">closed</a> the Saudi-backed King Salman Centre for International Peace (KSCIP). Malaysia is also <a href="https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/06/385065/malaysian-soldiers-saudi-arabia-return-soon-says-mohamad-sabu">withdrawing troops</a> from Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>In Indonesia, in addition to uneasiness about Khashoggi’s fate, people are protesting against the Saudi execution of Indonesian domestic worker Tuti Tursilawati <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/indonesia-says-it-had-no-warning-saudi-arabia-would-be-executing-maid">without warning</a> Indonesian authorities. </p>
<p>But, despite signs of change, the influence of Saudi money and ideology may be too big to dismantle in these countries. </p>
<h2>Saudi influence in Southeast Asia</h2>
<p>Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia shares similar values and was constructed and merged with ancient Melayu’s culture in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rMtGDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA2&dq=islam+masuk+indonesia+tahun+625&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjo4KgksLeAhVFQRoKHQz4C5UQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=islam%20masuk%20indonesia%20tahun%20625&f=false">625c</a>. Initially spread through arts such as music and <em>wayang</em> (theatre), it emphasises not only moderation and compassion, but also respect for local customs. </p>
<p>After increasing influence from Saudi scholars throughout the past two decades, however, there has been a change in how both countries interpret Islamic studies.</p>
<p>Saudi influence gained massive publicity due to the extravagant donation of US$680 million to Mahathir’s predecessor, Najib Razak, despite the fact it is increasingly evident it did not come from the kingdom’s royal family as claimed, but instead from corruption surrounding the 1MDB development fund.</p>
<p>In Malaysia, Saudi Arabia also donates to schools and universities to spread their <a href="https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2018/04/19/the-saudi-export-of-ultra-conservatism-in-the-era-of-mbs-an-update/">conservative views</a>. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5FA9C2C190CB47D1EBBB027E59494218/9780748696871c1_p21-40_CBO.pdf/islamic_university_of_medina_since_1961_the_politics_of_religious_mission_and_the_making_of_a_modern_salafi_pedagogy.pdf">Scholarships</a> are given to male scholars to study at Saudi universities such as the Islamic University of Madinah, famous for Salafism ideology. </p>
<p>The Islamic Science University of Malaysia (USIM) receives <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-politics-religion-analysis/worries-about-malaysias-arabisation-grow-as-saudi-ties-strengthen-idUSKBN1EF103">generous funding</a> from the Saudis. Similarly, in the Philippines, Saudi money has been <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10576100500236881?src=recsys">traceable</a> to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which allegedly had strong ties with al Qaeda. </p>
<p>The Saudis recently have been on a charm offensive in Malaysia. Their foreign minister visited in October, discussing matters such as Haj pilgrimage quotas. The Saudies have also tried to reassure the new government that their support for Najib was not malevolent.</p>
<p>When Saudi King Salman bin Abdl Aziz visited Jakarta in 2017, he allocated a <a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/saudi-funding-of-indonesian-education-fuels-concerns/5754">$13 billion budget for business</a>, education and religion in Indonesia. </p>
<p>In Indonesia, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10576100500236881?src=recsys">Saudi money is traceable</a> back to the 1980s. They made contributions to the Institute for the Study of Islam and Arabic (LIPIA). The institution, founded on Saudi money, is famously known for ultra-orthodox Islamic views. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/indonesia-the-saudis-are-coming/">For instance</a>, male students are urged to grow their beard and wear ankle-length linen pants. Women are encouraged to wear a burqa. The students <a href="https://tirto.id/lipia-ajaran-wahabi-di-indonesia-ckes">study philosophical thoughts</a> of Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, a founding father of Saudi Wahhabism.</p>
<p>LIPIA has <a href="http://www.mei.edu/publications/saudi-religious-influence-indonesia">strong links</a> to Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh. It’s <a href="https://tirto.id/lipia-ajaran-wahabi-di-indonesia-ckes">strictly monitored</a> by the Saudi embassy, essentially making it a branch of Saud Islamic University in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Khalid bin Muhammad Al-Deham, a Saudi national, leads the LIPIA management. There have been <a href="https://tirto.id/lipia-ajaran-wahabi-di-indonesia-ckes">11,535 alumni</a> from 1982-2013. The number of graduates increases each year. In 2017 <a href="https://www.hidayatullah.com/berita/nasional/read/2017/04/14/114922/lipia-wisuda-750-mahasiswa-dari-berbagai-angkatan.html">750 graduated</a>. </p>
<p>The alumni include Liberal Islam Network (JIL) coordinator Ulil Abshar Abdalla, former house of representatives deputy speaker and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) leader Anis Matta and former governor of West Java Ahmad Heryawan. Other notable alumni include Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Syihab, Aman Abdurrahman, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/berita_indonesia/2016/01/160114_indonesia_jumlah_korban">the ideologue</a> behind the 2016 Jakarta bombing that killed seven victims, and Jafar Umar Thalib, a founder of the militant and radical Islamic organisation Laskar Jihad. </p>
<p>Saudi Arabia also funds scholars from Indonesia to pursue Islamic studies at the Islamic University of Madinah. Among them are PKS politician Hidayat Nur Wahid, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-indonesia-politics-cleric-exclusive/exclusive-indonesian-islamist-leader-says-ethnic-chinese-wealth-is-next-target-idUSKBN18817N">chair</a> of the National Movement to Safeguard the Fatwas of the Indonesian Ulemas Council (GNPF-MUI) Bahtiar Nasir, and Syafiq Riza Basalamah, a famous Islamic preacher on YouTube. Syafiq is also head of the Islamic University of Imam Syafi'i in Jember, which <a href="https://www.ayat-kursi.com/2017/08/ustadz-syafiq-riza-basalamah.html">adapts its curriculum</a> from the Islamic University of Medinah.</p>
<h2>Spread of Saudi ideology</h2>
<p>There is a clear line between LIPIA in Jakarta, USIM in Malaysia, King Saud University in Riyadh and Islamic University of Madinah, which assists in the spread of Saudi ideology funded by Saudi money. </p>
<p>Not all their graduates support extreme views, of course. But there is a rise in extreme Islamic views triggering polarisation and conflict. Some are concerned that an increasing “<a href="http://www.atimes.com/article/malaysias-arabization-owes-ties-saudi-regime/">Arabisation</a>” of Malaysia and Indonesia has led to growing intolerance and division, even between Islamic adherents – creating a dichotomy of liberal and orthodox views.</p>
<p>This has a stronger impact when Saudi Arabia not only <a href="http://parstoday.com/id/radio/indonesia-i44599-metode_penyebaran_wahabi_di_indonesia">exports</a> its Wahabism view, but then encourages people to enter politics. In Malaysia, proselytisation via Saudi-funded mosques has been followed by a growing role of Saudi-trained Islamic scholars being recruited into the <a href="http://www.atimes.com/article/malaysias-arabization-owes-ties-saudi-regime/">governmental bureaucracy</a>. </p>
<p>Wahabi and Salafi politicians are gaining stronger influence in Indonesian and Malaysian politics. This not only furthers the spread of Wahabism, but also embeds Saudi influence into these very structures. </p>
<p>The generosity of Saudi money in Southeast Asia allows the embedding of this influence, as well as their ideology. Economic linkages such as funding and oil deals with Indonesia and Malaysia increase the support of the Saudi Kingdom. As such, while there are current disruptions and attempts to transform the relationship with Saudi Arabia, their ideological and economic influences make this extremely difficult.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Para penulis tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi di luar afiliasi akademis yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>
The influence of Saudi money and ideology may be too big to dismantle in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Asmiati Malik, Doctoral Researcher in Political Economy, University of Birmingham
Scott Edwards, Doctoral Researcher in International Relations, University of Birmingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106124
2018-11-06T09:27:51Z
2018-11-06T09:27:51Z
Khashoggi murder: how states are increasingly repressing dissidents beyond their borders
<p>Authoritarian states have long tried to <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/jamal-khashoggi-meng-hongwei-assassination-abduction-dictators.html">suppress dissidents</a> who oppose the regime. But in the age of globalisation, they are increasingly able to mobilise beyond their territorial borders and target political opponents overseas.</p>
<p>The brutal murder of Saudi journalist <a href="https://theconversation.com/jamal-khashoggi-disappearance-a-defining-moment-for-saudi-arabias-relations-with-the-west-105064">Jamal Khashoggi</a>, a former Saudi regime insider who became a critic in self exile of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is an extreme example of this new reality. </p>
<p>Although the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudi-arabia-not-fully-cooperating-with-khashoggi-investigation-turkish-official-says/2018/10/31/804bfc2a-dc78-11e8-8bac-bfe01fcdc3a6_story.html?utm_term=.7a71769f43af">precise details of Khashoggi’s murder</a> have yet to be proved, his <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-turkeys-erdogan-is-seeking-to-gain-in-wake-of-saudi-journalist-jamal-khashoggis-murder-105201">grim fate</a> – he was allegedly strangled and dismembered by Saudi agents inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey – reflects broader patterns of transnational repression.</p>
<h2>Is anyone safe?</h2>
<p>Khashoggi was a controversial and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/19/jamal-khashoggi-obituary">high-profile figure</a>, not only in Saudi Arabia but around the world. He had an international voice and connections with highly prestigious political figures, global media outlets, including The Washington Post, and organisations. And yet this didn’t prevent the Saudi regime from seeking to silence him in a foreign country. </p>
<p>So what of other dissident members of the diaspora – those without Khashoggi’s leverage but who still challenge the policies of home states from abroad? Are they any safer? In fact, all politically exiled activists are becoming increasingly subject to transnational repression while their opportunities to dissent, even in the Western world, are <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur62/5974/2017/en/">becoming more and more limited</a>. </p>
<p>The idea that diasporas oppressed in their countries of origin could find political and social <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100369430">opportunities</a> in the West and other liberal democracies was once celebrated. In their new homes, they could benefit from the freedoms of speech and assembly to challenge across borders the governments and policies that had threatened them and their way of life. It <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/22/refugees-political-resource-help-those-left-behind">was even asked</a> whether diasporas and their newly emerging power in world politics might challenge the very existence of some authoritarian regimes, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15562948.2016.1212133">as happened during the Arab Spring</a>. But <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15562948.2016.1177152">recent research</a> suggests that the opposite is now becoming the case.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sergei-skripal-and-the-long-history-of-assassination-attempts-abroad-93021">Sergei Skripal and the long history of assassination attempts abroad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Khashoggi’s ruthless killing is just one example of a broader trend – outlined in John Heathershaw and Alex Cooley’s book <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300208443/dictators-without-borders">Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia</a> – including the widespread detention, kidnapping, murder and extradition of dissidents and their relatives. Of course, dissidents have long been murdered abroad – take the 1978 case of <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9949856/Prime-suspect-in-Georgi-Markov-umbrella-poison-murder-tracked-down-to-Austria.html">Bulgarian Georgi Markov</a>, who was assassinated with a poison tipped umbrella in London. But the evidence suggests that such acts are now more common.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243874/original/file-20181105-83638-zp2pwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A vigil for Khashoggi, staged outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 25.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/webgate?SERIESDISPLAY=1&EVENT=WEBSHOP_SEARCH&SEARCHLANGUAGE=eng_usa&SEARCHMODE=NEW&SEARCHTXT1=jamal+khashoggi">EPA Images</a></span>
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<p>The <a href="https://excas.net/exiles/">Central Asia Political Exiles Database</a>, developed at the University of Exeter, demonstrates the drastic efforts of the region’s dictators to silence dissent transnationally. Evidence from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2016.1263078">Iran</a>, <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2102131,00.html">Syria</a>, Azerbaijan, Russia, <a href="http://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/20180430/editorial-countries-abuse-interpol-red-notices">Turkey</a> and China – where it was revealed the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/07/china-admits-missing-interpol-chief-meng-hongwei-is-under-monitoring">“missing” Interpol chief, Meng Hongwei</a>, is being held – shows how authoritarian states are increasingly adopting repressive strategies to control, extort or manipulate citizens beyond their borders.</p>
<h2>Technology and terrorism</h2>
<p>New technologies and <a href="https://theconversation.com/revolution-how-the-humble-hashtag-changed-world-politics-105483">social media</a> not only help opposition groups to mobilise, they also permit authoritarian states to map dissent internally and internationally – and intimidate dissenting voices. For example, <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/550fdcc34.html">exiled journalists from Iran</a> have reported being contacted while abroad by Iranian security agents, who used social media sites to threaten to harm them or their families inside Iran. </p>
<p>As research by the <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/">CitizenLab</a> at the <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2018/03/bad-traffic-sandvines-packetlogic-devices-deploy-government-spyware-turkey-syria/">University of Toronto demonstrates</a>, authoritarian states are also increasingly buying mass surveillance technologies from Western companies. A major report, released in 2014, by Human Rights Watch, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/03/25/they-know-everything-we-do/telecom-and-internet-surveillance-ethiopia">They Know Everything We Do: Telecom and Internet Surveillance in Ethiopia</a>, documents how the Ethiopian government has acquired surveillance technologies from several countries and used it against perceived political opponents inside the country and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/25/ethiopia-telecom-surveillance-chills-rights">among the diaspora</a>. </p>
<p>Authoritarian states further legitimise their repressive actions by branding dissidents “terrorists”. Turkey, for example, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-kurds-demirtas-idUSKCN0XV1CE">has used this pretext</a> to push Western governments towards banning dissident Kurdish organisations and TV channels.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://euobserver.com/justice/139292">even evidence</a> that nations are using the Interpol system to target dissidents by issuing alerts against <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/interpol-red-notice-alerts-journalist-arrests-by-jago-russell-and-christophe-deloire-2017-12?barrier=accesspaylog">perceived political opponents</a>. According to Fair Trials, Interpol alerts have become weaponised in some cases, by repressive states against exiled <a href="https://www.fairtrials.org/publication/strengthening-interpol-update">journalists, human rights defenders and political activists</a>. </p>
<p>Diplomatic cooperation agreements – such as the <a href="http://eng.sectsco.org">Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)</a> – also facilitate the coordination of transnational repression against wanted people. The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2014.976614?src=recsys&journalCode=fasi20">SCO’s anti-terrorist structure</a> enables signatory states, <a href="http://eng.sectsco.org/for_media/20180606/441009.html">including Russia and China</a>, to carry out abductions and renditions of <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/01/30/the-league-of-authoritarian-gentlemen/">some individuals</a>, outside the normal judicial procedures and constraints of international law.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jamal-khashoggis-murder-finally-brings-media-attention-to-plight-of-arab-worlds-exiled-critics-105705">Jamal Khashoggi's murder finally brings media attention to plight of Arab world's exiled critics</a>
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<p>Additionally, governments put pressure on the relatives of exiled activists by using them as weapons of retaliation. In 2017, for example, <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/5a61eea14.html">12 family members</a> of Azerbaijani opposition blogger Ordukhan Teymurkhan were detained by Azerbaijani police in Baku. The arrests were made after Teymurkhan took part in the pro-democratic <a href="https://www.meydan.tv/en/site/news/21238/%20%5BAccessed%20:29%20October%202018">Free Political Prisoners</a> protest in Cologne, Germany. Similar tactics have been reported <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-urged-stop-vicious-retaliation-against-activists-hudoidodova-relatives/29417810.html">in Tajikistan</a>.</p>
<p>So what are the implications of such actions for world politics? Where are the red lines for countries that are hosting dissidents and what happens when they are crossed? These questions have yet to be satisfactorily answered, but Khashoggi’s death – and the recent assassination attempt on <a href="https://theconversation.com/colonel-chepiga-who-really-identified-the-skripal-poisoner-and-why-it-matters-104275">Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK</a> – illustrate the rise of authoritarian power that transcends sovereign boundaries.</p>
<p>Globalisation has made territorial boundaries more permeable – for better and for worse. But when authoritarian regimes flout international law and disregard the sovereignty of other countries to oppress those that oppose them, the rest of the world must act.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106124/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bahar Baser currently receives funding from the Newton Mobility Fund, The Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Stanley Foundation, Gerda Henkel Stiftung and the Council for the British Research in the Levant for her research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saipira Furstenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Khashoggi’s ruthless killing is just one example of a broader trend including the widespread detention, kidnapping, murder and extradition of dissidents and their relatives.
Saipira Furstenberg, Lecturer in Politics, Oxford Brookes University
Bahar Baser, Senior Research Fellow, Coventry University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105705
2018-11-02T10:51:58Z
2018-11-02T10:51:58Z
Jamal Khashoggi’s murder finally brings media attention to plight of Arab world’s exiled critics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243317/original/file-20181031-122162-1fhhn16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Candles, lit by activists, protesting the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, are placed outside Saudi Arabia's consulate, in Istanbul.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Turkey-Saudi-Arabia-Writer-Killed/bb55e6d76ed947b8a7f26929c19e8342/50/0">AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The gruesome and dramatic <a href="https://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2018/10/17/the-khashoggi-affair-n2529048">killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi</a> in the Saudi consulate in Turkey has captivated media outlets around the world.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/jamal-khashoggi-what-the-arab-world-needs-most-is-free-expression">A columnist</a> for the Washington Post, Khashoggi had been living in the United States since 2017 as a Saudi exile. </p>
<p>Some have frowned upon this excessive coverage, wondering why one particular instance of <a href="http://alonben-meir.com/writing/the-saudi-butchery-in-yemen-and-the-worlds-apathy/">Saudi butchery</a> was making headlines, while the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-says-the-time-to-end-the-saudi-backed-war-in-yemen-is-now/2018/10/31/67d930ea-dd2c-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html?utm_term=.90c7b03c8413">Saudi-backed war in Yemen</a> has been going on for years, has claimed the lives of thousands of children and hasn’t received a fraction of the attention.</p>
<p>But I think the coverage of Khashoggi’s murder is important. As an expert in Arab media, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137020918?msclkid=6ef742eda7cd1925c0d71935c7f18358&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Shopping%2520%257C%2520eBooks%2520%257C%2520US&utm_term=4576510994090740&utm_content=All%2520eBooks#otherversion=9781349437597">I’ve studied the cyberactivists</a> who work to bring about political and social change in the Arab world. </p>
<p>For the first time, the media is bringing widespread attention to the real dangers faced every day by opponents of Arab regimes living abroad. </p>
<p>This was not the first, nor will it be the last, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/63/4/480/2402855">government-orchestrated crime</a> against Arab journalists and activists who are living in exile. However, before Khashoggi’s death, many of these crimes went unnoticed or underreported.</p>
<h2>The Arab Spring fizzles – and many flee</h2>
<p>Beginning in 2011, waves of opposition to the regimes in power swept through six Arab countries: Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. </p>
<p>Known as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/10/19/what-the-arab-uprising-protesters-really-wanted/?utm_term=.886fb8ef62e4">Arab Spring</a>, many of these protest movements had a similar set of demands: freedom, dignity and democracy.</p>
<p>Some of these countries were long led by dictators, such as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/07/world/meast/hosni-mubarak---fast-facts/index.html">Hosni Mubarak</a>, who ruled Egypt for 30 years; <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/2011/02/201122117565923629.html">Moammar Gadhafi</a>, who ruled Libya for 42 years; and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12196679">Zine El Abidine Ben Ali</a>, who ruled Tunisia for 23 years. It was the first time in decades that these countries witnessed popular uprisings that shook the thrones of political leaders and ousted them from power. </p>
<p><a href="http://natoassociation.ca/tunisian-exceptionalism-explaining-tunisias-post-arab-spring-success/">Tunisia</a> was able to chart a relatively smooth, peaceful path toward reform and democratization. </p>
<p>But it ended up being the exception.</p>
<p>The rest of the Arab Spring countries had brief dalliances with democracy, only to revert to a system of political oppression and authoritarianism. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/interactives/global-conflict-tracker#!/conflict/civil-war-in-libya">Libya</a> is torn by sectarian strife; <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/key-facts-war-yemen-160607112342462.html">Yemen</a> is being bombed day and night; <a href="https://www.cfr.org/interactives/global-conflict-tracker#!/conflict/civil-war-in-syria">Syria</a> is experiencing the worst civil war in modern history; <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/08/egypt-the-new-dictatorship/">Egypt</a> returned to a military dictatorship far worse than Mubarak’s; and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/02/13/how-bahrains-crushed-uprising-spawned-the-middle-easts-sectarianism/?utm_term=.395f831a553a">Bahrain’s uprising</a> was suppressed.</p>
<p>Fearing for their lives and safety – and unable to openly organize and express themselves – many of the leading Arab Spring activists and journalists fled their home countries.</p>
<p>Some, such as Egyptian blogger <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44226464">Wael Abbas</a>, didn’t make it out and remain imprisoned in their home countries. Others, such as Egyptian blogger <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/investing-in-the-legacy-of-the-arab-spring/2015/04/26/c44b1638-e9c7-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html?utm_term=.e7b260fce5d5">Maikel Nabil Sanad</a>, are now living in exile.</p>
<p>Although Saudi Arabia wasn’t officially one of the Arab Spring countries, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-protests/saudi-arabia-says-wont-tolerate-protests-idUSTRE72419N20110305">anti-government protests did crop up across the nation</a> in <a href="https://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-women-defy-ban-to-register-for-polls-1.799161">2011</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-arrest/saudi-police-arrest-prominent-shiite-muslim-cleric-idUSBRE8670GH20120708">2012</a>. There was enough concern among the ruling class to further <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/11/20111121195944732930.html">crack down</a> and <a href="https://www.webcitation.org/5xQmQEnJ2?url=http://www.acpra.net/news.php?action=list&cat_id=12">suppress opposing voices</a>. </p>
<p>The heightened repression and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35154411">stifling of freedom of expression</a> in Saudi Arabia forced many dissidents and opponents to flee the country and, like their Arab Spring peers, exercise their opposition in the diaspora.</p>
<p>For many years, Jamal Khashoggi worked as a journalist in Saudi Arabia, eventually becoming editor-in-chief of the Saudi Arabian daily al-Watan. But in 2003, authorities removed him from his position after one of his columnists wrote a piece critical of an Islamic scholar. Khashoggi moved to London, bounced around the Middle East, and <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/authors/J/Ja/Jamal-Khashoggi.html?currentPage=1">regularly wrote</a> for the Dubai-based periodical al-Arabiya.</p>
<h2>An attack on one, an attack on all</h2>
<p>While Khashoggi eventually relocated to the U.S. in 2017, many political bloggers and activists who oppose Arab ruling regimes have moved to Turkey.</p>
<p><a href="http://aymanoormasr.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-biography.html">Dr. Ayman Nour</a>, for example, was arrested in Egypt in 2005 for daring to run as a presidential candidate against former President Hosni Mubarak. After the military coup in Egypt in 2013, Nour founded <a href="https://www.egyptindependent.com/employees-at-turkey-based-al-sharq-news-channel-admit-qatari-financing/">al-Sharq</a>, a Turkey-based opposition TV channel, which aims to expose the repression and authoritarianism of the current Egyptian regime.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243316/original/file-20181031-122168-xqjqpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243316/original/file-20181031-122168-xqjqpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243316/original/file-20181031-122168-xqjqpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243316/original/file-20181031-122168-xqjqpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243316/original/file-20181031-122168-xqjqpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243316/original/file-20181031-122168-xqjqpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243316/original/file-20181031-122168-xqjqpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ayman Nour has criticized Egypt’s ruling regime from Turkey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-International-News-Egypt-File-/6a684ccc15e1da11af9f0014c2589dfb/18/0">AP Photo/Nasser Nouri</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Shaken by Khashoggi’s murder, he and a number of prominent Arab and Turkish figures created the group “<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/khashoggi-supporters-hold-vigil-outside-saudi-consulate/vp-BBOUqmB">Jamal Khashoggi Friends Association</a>” to raise international awareness about this hideous crime and the alarming message it sends to other opponents of autocratic regimes.</p>
<p>To activists like Nour, the attack on Khashoggi is an attack on everyone in the Arab opposition movement in the diaspora.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, their safety in their host countries has been far from guaranteed. In recent years, there have been a number of tragic incidents of violence and aggression directed at some of these activists. </p>
<p>Last year, Ahmed Barakat broke into the Istanbul apartment of his cousin, Syrian opposition activist <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/fbi-probing-murder-syrian-american-journalist-mother-turkey/story?id=51436199">Orouba Barakat</a>, and her daughter, Halla Barakat, a journalist who worked for the Syrian opposition channel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient_News">Orient News TV</a>, and gruesomely slaughtered both of them. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/fbi-probing-murder-syrian-american-journalist-mother-turkey/story?id=51436199">Many suspect that Ahmed Barakat</a>, a former Free Syrian Army fighter, had been directed by the Assad regime to carry out the murders.</p>
<p>In March of this year, Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul was plucked from the streets of Abu Dhabi by security forces who returned her to Saudi Arabia, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-24/saudi-arabia-women-activists-jailed-as-driving-ban-ends/9900500">where she remains imprisoned</a>. </p>
<p>After Khashoggi’s murder, I reached out to a Syrian-American journalist living in exile in the United States, but who has contact with people in Turkey. Due to safety concerns, she spoke with me under condition of anonymity. </p>
<p>She noted that “especially after Khashoggi’s murder…the Turkish government [has] adopted tougher security measures.” But his death was only the latest. “Several Syrian opposition figures have been previously targeted and killed in Turkey,” she added.</p>
<h2>Saudi opposition weak at home and abroad</h2>
<p>Why aren’t the loudest voices opposing Khashoggi’s murder Saudi ones? </p>
<p>The country is, in many ways, a paradox.</p>
<p>On one hand, it has a very large, young, tech-savvy population and is the country with the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-twitter-users-in-selected-countries/">fourth-largest number of Twitter users</a> in the world. </p>
<p>On the other hand, however, there’s no freedom of the press, and public debate is pretty much nonexistent. </p>
<p>This explains why there has been complete silence inside Saudi Arabia around Khashoggi’s death aside from the ruling regime’s narrative, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-jamal-khashoggi-turkey-accuses-saudi-arabia-of-murdering-reporter-2018-10">has evolved</a> from denial, to evasion, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-jamal-khashoggi-turkey.html">to partial confession</a>. </p>
<p>While there has been a growing movement of Saudi opposition in the diaspora, unlike the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-arab-diaspora-finds-its-voice/article4243545/">Egyptian and Syrian opposition</a> movements, which have been more organized and capable of creating their own associations, Saudi opponents remain few and far between. They are mostly young activists using their social media platforms to voice individual criticisms.</p>
<p>One such activist is Omar Abdulaziz. A friend of Khashoggi’s, the young Saudi dissident lives in Montreal, Canada. </p>
<p>Using his YouTube, Twitter and Instagram accounts, Omar is openly critical of the Saudi regime for its repression, corruption and human rights violations.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1057395397931483143"}"></div></p>
<p>His vocal opposition hasn’t gone unpunished. In August 2018, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-arrests-brothers-and-friends-canada-based-bin-salman-critic-2018425">the Saudi regime arrested</a> two of his brothers and some of his friends in an act of retaliation. Yet, Omar <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/omar-abdulaziz-spyware-saudi-arabia-nso-citizen-lab-quebec-1.4845179">has insisted</a> that he won’t be silenced, intimidated or blackmailed. </p>
<p>Following Khashoggi’s murder, Omar described the Saudi crown prince as an “illegitimate leader” and a “killer” on Twitter and YouTube.</p>
<p>Because the price of activism – even abroad – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/10/critics-of-saudi-regime-are-at-risk-wherever-they-may-be">can be so high</a>, the public-facing Abdulaziz is an exception. Most Saudi opponents will keep a much lower profile, using pseudonyms or posting anonymously.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>Authoritarian Arab regimes have tightened their grip on power and escalated their mechanisms of repression in the years since the Arab Spring uprisings. </p>
<p>Many of these regimes have been enabled by their own people, many of whom are either apathetic or supportive of their repressive policies: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/30/why-some-arabs-dont-want-democracy/?utm_term=.6d8a2ea6a421">They prioritize the promise of stability over the dream of freedom</a>.</p>
<p>They’ve also been emboldened by the current American administration, which practices <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-returns-u-s-to-realpolitik-in-world-affairs-1505851115">a brand of realpolitik</a> that prioritizes its economic interests over its values when dealing with autocrats and dictators. </p>
<p>But the death of Arab opponents such as Jamal Khashoggi doesn’t signal the death of Arab opposition. </p>
<p>With the whole world watching, texting, tweeting and chatting, I believe that many of these governments will eventually be condemned in the court of public opinion, both at home and abroad.</p>
<p>If anything positive came out of the tragic murder of Khashoggi, it is that there has finally been extensive global media attention given to an extrajudicial killing in the diaspora. </p>
<p>The Saudi regime might think twice about trying to pull off something similar.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sahar Khamis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Will it embolden or neuter the Arab world’s autocratic regimes?
Sahar Khamis, Associate Professor of Communication, University of Maryland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105196
2018-10-29T21:40:06Z
2018-10-29T21:40:06Z
Saudi Arabia’s gathering storm over its erratic crown prince
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242621/original/file-20181028-7071-13xgk0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen at the Future Investment Initiative conference, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Oct. 23, 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s hard not to be moved on a personal level by Jamal Khashoggi’s brutal murder. The circumstances — <a href="https://globalnews.ca/video/4579228/video-from-night-of-khashoggis-disappearance-shows-fiance-waiting-outside-saudi-consulate">the fact that his fiancée was waiting outside for him</a>, expecting him to return with the paper work needed to start a new life while he was being murdered — are almost as uncomfortable to contemplate as <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/tiger-squad-saudi-hitmen-khashoggi-mbs">the gruesome details of his torture and murder</a>.</p>
<p>All evidence points to a personal involvement of the Saudi crown prince, and has put his personal character under the glare of the international media spotlight. What is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman all about? Would the House of Saud change dramatically if the elderly King Salmon opted to replace him?</p>
<p>And is “MBS,” as he’s been dubbed by western media, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/05/saudi-arabia-arrests-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman">a reformer</a> or an autocrat?</p>
<p>MBS built his image through a concerted public relations strategy that included a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/politics/saudi-image-campaign-twitter.html">social media “troll army”</a> and a Twitter spy. He’s been assisted in his efforts to be viewed as a reformer by western media’s long history of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/1ca1a9a4-d142-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5">extreme gullibility</a> when it comes to the prospect of new leadership in the Middle East (does anyone remember that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/president-assad-receives-a-warm-welcome-into-blairs-mutual-admiration-club-136229.html">young, reform-minded Bashar al-Assad circa 2000?</a>).</p>
<p>If we look at the broader political environment in Saudi Arabia, its long-term challenges and the basis of the traditional social contract between the royal family and the population, it becomes clear how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is both a reformer and a despot.</p>
<h2>Defining moment for the kingdom</h2>
<p>Saudi Arabia was already facing a looming crisis, even before Khashoggi’s murder, that challenges the very core of its economic model and the royal family’s relationship with the country’s citizens.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia — the <a href="http://foreignpolicynews.org/2017/06/20/paradox-rentier-state/">archetypal rentier state</a> — has not traditionally taxed its population, but instead sells crude oil on the global market and uses the profits to balance its books.</p>
<p>But in recent years, due to the emergence of non-traditional energy sources — for example, Canadian oilsands, fracking and renewables — there have been considerable <a href="https://www.mepc.org/speeches/saudi-arabia-and-oil-price-collapse">price variations for oil</a> and a squeeze on Saudi’s market share.</p>
<p>The decreased demand and greater competition are likely to continue over the long term, especially if measures like <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.4843029/nobel-prize-winning-economist-says-carbon-taxes-are-the-solution-to-climate-change-1.4854639">carbon taxes</a> are taken up more widely. In other words, the kingdom’s exports are facing an uncertain future, and this has a direct impact on its traditional political-economic structures. </p>
<p>Perhaps the easiest way of understanding how this has traditionally worked is through a reversal of the famous maxim <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/250-years-ago-today-no-taxation-without-representation">“no taxation without representation”</a> from the American Revolutionary war: For the general population in Saudi Arabia there has been, until recently, <a href="https://www.economist.com/special-report/2002/03/21/no-taxation-no-representation">no taxation and no representation</a>.</p>
<p>That means the Saudi government doesn’t need any popular acceptance for its legitimacy, and instead bases its rule on a combination of patronage and oppression.</p>
<h2>Continuity and change</h2>
<p>Based on the work of U.S. consultancy firm McKinsey, Prince Mohammed in 2016 launched a program of reform and economic diversification known as <a href="http://vision2030.gov.sa/">Vision 2030</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242622/original/file-20181028-7056-stqx47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242622/original/file-20181028-7056-stqx47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242622/original/file-20181028-7056-stqx47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242622/original/file-20181028-7056-stqx47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242622/original/file-20181028-7056-stqx47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242622/original/file-20181028-7056-stqx47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242622/original/file-20181028-7056-stqx47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Khashoggi is seen in 2015 in Manama, Bahrain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)</span></span>
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<p>Over a decade and a half, this plan — supported by Khashoggi but considered by some to be “<a href="https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/saudi-arabias-vision-2030-plan-too-big-fail-or-succeed">too big to fail or succeed</a>” — aimed to build a new Saudi Arabia with a “vibrant economy” that would no longer be a slave to the oil market. </p>
<p>Taxes would be introduced, women would be brought into the labour market, corruption would be curtailed and Saudi Arabia would become an international commercial and renewable energy hub.</p>
<p>But while so much was slated to change in this bright future, there were two critical elements of the kingdom’s identity that were not up for debate: The absolute authority of the royal family within the country and the supremacy of Saudi Arabia within the Persian Gulf region.</p>
<p>In a country where governing has traditionally depended on dealing with opponents either through buying them off or brutally oppressing them, the royal family has developed a greater reliance on oppression. Given these circumstances, is it any wonder that the kingdom has produced a ruler as vicious and tyrannical as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?</p>
<h2>Ruthless, but incompetent</h2>
<p>But if MBS’s ruthlessness should not surprise us, his lack of competence should. The murder of Khashoggi is only Mohammad’s latest apparent miscalculation. Even though he only rose to his current station in 2017, the crown prince has already compiled a considerable record of mercurial policy manoeuvres, including (but not limited to):</p>
<p><strong>—</strong> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/key-facts-war-yemen-160607112342462.html">A brutal, costly</a> and apparently unending war in Yemen, prosecuted with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/13/britain-complicit-saudi-arabia-war-yemen-hodeidah">Western support;</a></p>
<p><strong>—</strong> An unprecedented and unsuccessful <a href="https://www.gulf-times.com/story/595585/The-siege-of-Qatar-An-exercise-in-futility">siege of the neighbouring state of Qatar</a>;</p>
<p><strong>—</strong> The <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/lebanon-saad-hariri-saudi-arabia-detain-prime-minister-hezbollah-michael-aoun-president-a8055691.html">kidnapping and apparent beating of Lebanon’s prime minister</a>, then forcing him to resign, only to see the Lebanese leader reclaim his job after the French intervened; and </p>
<p><strong>—</strong> A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/28/saudi-foreign-minister-demands-canada-stop-treating-it-like-a-banana-republic">bizarre feud with Canada</a> over a tweet that has produced no positive results of consequence for the kingdom.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-canada-could-use-the-saudi-quarrel-to-help-the-middle-east-and-itself-101488">How Canada could use the Saudi quarrel to help the Middle East -- and itself</a>
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</em>
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<p>It’s already obvious that there will be no real justice for Khashoggi or his fiancée even after Saudi Arabian’s public prosecutor <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/25/660506863/saudi-arabia-now-says-khashoggi-killing-was-premeditated">has said his murder was pre-meditated</a>. Almost as soon as it became public, his execution became a pawn in an international game of leverage between Turkey, the United States and Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>MBS’s future is uncertain. He faces discontent at home and he has lost powerful allies abroad, but given the dearth of serious alternatives for his job, there’s still a strong chance he will survive.</p>
<p>But even if he falls, it would be foolish to expect his successor to offer substantive change given Saudi Arabia’s political and economic realities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Leech-Ngo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The future for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is uncertain following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but it would be foolish to expect any successor to offer substantive change.
Philip Leech-Ngo, Senior Research Fellow, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105684
2018-10-25T13:38:37Z
2018-10-25T13:38:37Z
Davos in the desert: businesses are right to put principles before profit and pull out of Saudi investment conference
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242265/original/file-20181025-71029-jomf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/riyadh-august-22-aerial-view-downtown-474205198?src=XrbtrcVaO--8B6dhGwb-Yw-1-23">Fedor Selivanov / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Siemens chief, Joe Kaeser has pulled out of the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, dubbed “Davos in the Desert”, amid outrage at the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Speaking on CNN, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/22/business/siemens-ceo-saudi-arabia/index.html">he said</a>: “We are the ones who need to fix the issues … We are the ones who have the responsibility to show our people the way and find a win-win solution.”</p>
<p>It was a tough decision. Siemens employs more than 2,000 people in Saudi Arabia and has significant business interests in the country. You do not easily break away from important clients. Yet, like others including the chief executives of big investment companies such as JP Morgan, Blackstone and Blackrock, as well as tech companies such as Uber and ABB, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/23/business/saudi-davos-in-the-desert-speakers/index.html">and many others</a>, Kaeser decided that the taint of association with Saudi Arabia, following Khashoggi’s murder, would be worse. </p>
<p>Although this sort of thing is not very common, similar incidents have happened before. Several heads of US businesses <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/01/30/business-world-has-reacted-donald-trumps-travel-ban/">protested</a> against the travel ban that was levelled against many majority Muslim countries by the US president, Donald Trump, in January 2017. In August 2017, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-protests-merck-idUSKCN1AU1FM">several resigned</a> from Trump’s American Manufacturing Council in protest at the president’s morally inadequate response to the deadly violence by white supremacists at Charlottesville. Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier put it best at the time <a href="https://twitter.com/Merck/status/897065338566791169">when he said</a>: “As CEO of Merck and as a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.” </p>
<h2>Taking a stand</h2>
<p>In the years to come expect to see more business leaders compelled to take a moral stance, whether it’s about the murder of a foreign dissident, the insensitive behaviour of a sitting president, or the persecution of religious or ethnic minorities. It will be increasingly difficult to avoid. </p>
<p>There are two main reasons for this: moral and social.</p>
<p>First, it is often assumed that business transactions are separate from the rest of our daily lives. For example, I do not need to approve of my greengrocer’s lifestyle in order to buy from him. As long as he serves me what I want, at prices I find reasonable, the rest of his life is not my concern.</p>
<p>Much of the time this may be true. But if I learn that he has, say, racist views or he mistreats his staff, I do not want to condone his behaviour, even indirectly, by giving him my money. As a consumer I have not stopped being a moral being. My sense of responsibility does not stop when I spend my money – on the contrary, it is magnified by having a choice in how I spend my money.</p>
<p>It is not very different for companies. Most of the time you may not care, or even stop to think about, the values or morality of those you deal with. At some critical point, however, you may well. A president who fails to unequivocally condemn a racist killing makes you wonder whether you want to sit on his business advisory board. A crown prince who throws his critics in jail or is suspected to have ordered the mafia-style killing of a dissident is not one whose hand you may want to shake. Your intuitive morality does not allow you to stomach it. How would you explain your actions to your children, your employees and your customers? Your own moral reputation is at stake.</p>
<p>Secondly, society’s expectations of corporate behaviour have changed. A survey by large public relations firm Edelman found that more than half of consumers said they chose to buy from brands <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7aef7e9a-52af-11e7-bfb8-997009366969">whose beliefs they shared</a> (and nearly a quarter are willing to pay more for this). To add value you need to show you have values. A company that does not appear to distance itself from inappropriate behaviour risks tarnishing its reputation.</p>
<h2>Moral compass</h2>
<p>The rise of 24/7 communications has created a global public forum in which events in distant places are beamed into everyone’s living room. Business leaders cannot pretend they don’t know about the barbaric murder of a journalist or the racist killing of a protester – and that knowledge creates a sense of responsibility.</p>
<p>Does this mean that business leaders will always need to take a stance in response to all the world’s problems? Not at all. Morally principled pragmatism is required – not utopian idealism. A CEO need not be a moral crusader with a mission to save the world in order to act as a moral leader.</p>
<p>Companies can decide which issues on which to take a stance. Human affairs, as Aristotle noted, are inherently variable – so much so that there cannot be general rules for how a leader should act. Details, history and context matter. The important thing is to have good judgment – to want to do the right thing in a way that is most effective in the circumstances you face. For that you need a moral compass, not a moral manual.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Haridimos Tsoukas is also the Columbia Ship Management Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Cyprus. </span></em></p>
Expect this kind of behaviour to increase in the years to come.
Haridimos Tsoukas, Professor of Organisation Behaviour, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105530
2018-10-24T13:08:41Z
2018-10-24T13:08:41Z
Jamal Khashoggi: why stating the truth is getting a lot of journalists killed
<p>It took a while for <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/jamal-khashoggi-obituary-xjpkf0hgs">obituaries to start appearing</a> for murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi – and there is still some uncertainty over the manner of his death. Turkish authorities are so far declining to release either sound or video of the assassination – both of which they are <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/17/turkey-has-not-yet-shared-khashoggi-audio-video-evidence-with-us.html">alleged to possess</a>.</p>
<p>But as the wrangling continues, it is worth stepping back for a longer view of why this state murder of a journalist is important. More than 230 media workers <a href="https://cpj.org/data/killed">have been killed</a> around the world over the past three years and, according to press freedom organisations, in many cases there was <a href="https://rsf.org/en/barometer">clear state involvement</a>. </p>
<p>Interestingly, given its strident calls for justice in Khashoggi’s case, one of the worst regimes in terms of freedom of the press at the moment is Turkey – which Reporters without Borders labels the “<a href="https://rsf.org/en/turkey">world’s biggest prison for professional journalists</a>”.</p>
<p>Some are saying that Khashoggi’s murder <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/jamal-khashoggi-disappearance-trend-fight">marks</a> the end of rules-based global order. Maybe that’s because it suggests authoritarian leaders can silence their critics with impunity. And when the US president quite clearly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/opinion/khashoggi-saudi-trump-arms-sales.html?fbclid=IwAR0cDkhFeZeirLr7ui64jSoocqaXCkDUtY3Ezx5YKAg0reid8NQRvbsTQOo">privileges trade over human rights</a> – as he appeared to do initially with Khashoggi – it should be deeply worrying for anyone concerned about press freedom and political accountability.</p>
<p>According to the latest reports, Trump now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/23/jamal-khashoggi-trump-cover-up-sanctions-visas">seems to accept</a> the involvement of the Saudi leadership. But there is little evidence of concern for free expression. Instead, he has complained about the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/khashoggi-cover-up-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">quality of the cover-up</a>, and expressed disappointment at the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/politics/trump-khashoggi-dead.html">publicity rather than the killing</a>, saying: “This one has caught the imagination of the world, unfortunately.” </p>
<p>At around the same time that the Khashoggi story was gathering pace, the US president showed what he thinks of journalists with whom he doesn’t see eye to eye, when he took time out during a rally in Montana to praise the local Republican senator, Greg Gianforte – who is up for re-election in November – for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/trump-greg-gianforte-assault-guardian-ben-jacobs">assaulting Guardian journalist</a> Ben Jacobs in 2017.</p>
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<p>Both Khashoggi and Jacobs remind us that the problem of suppressing free expression through violence toward the media is widespread and increasing – and certain nations who pay lip service to the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2018/united-states">notion of press freedom</a> have enabled an environment of state impunity for attacks on media workers.</p>
<h2>Death in Belgrade</h2>
<p>In April 2019 a momentous 20-year anniversary will pass with little notice – an anniversary which, to my mind, marks the more realistic start of the end of global order. It marked the moment that the US, supposedly the dominant defender of global press freedom, switched – in an explosive instant – to become a press predator. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242024/original/file-20181024-48703-1jmmcm9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ruins of the RTS in Belgrade which was bombed by NATO aircraft in 1999.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WhiteWriter via Flickr.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>This was the destruction in 1999, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/airwar20.htm">by US-led NATO forces</a>, of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02p66lg">Serbian public broadcaster</a> in Belgrade, resulting in the murder of 16 civilian media workers who shared the misfortune of being on the wrong night shift. A <a href="https://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990423l.htm">NATO spokesman said</a> the next day they had be bombed because the US and its NATO partners did not approve of “their version of the news”.</p>
<p>It was the first shot in a decade-long US campaign of violence against media workers resulting in at least 46 media deaths, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan between 1999 and 2007 – a period documented <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745334172/war-reporters-under-threat/">in my 2014 book</a> War Reporters Under Threat: The United States and Media Freedom. The US is culpable of further injuries and detentions of journalists and other media workers in this period along with increasing harassment and surveillance of journalists since, at home and abroad.</p>
<p>My research analysed 12 cases of US military attacks on media facilities resulting in 20 deaths and 26 further media worker deaths linked to US government employees (but not part of an attack on a specific media facility). Most of those were shootings of journalists as they reported, and many received little public attention. As with the 2003 shelling of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad where international journalists were staying, in which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/apr/09/pressandpublishing.Iraqandthemedia">three media workers were killed</a>, there may not have been a deliberate plan to target media workers. But I believe there was certainly negligence by the US government – and likely violations of international law in every case. </p>
<p>And, despite determined efforts by the <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/1/us_pressured_spain_to_drop_case">relatives of murdered journalists</a>, <a href="https://www.ifex.org/iraq/2005/11/24/ifj_calls_for_re_opening_of_investigation/">press freedom advocates</a> and, occasionally, from the governments of other states – including Italy and Spain – whose citizens had been killed, the US has enjoyed utter impunity for those deaths. This has effectively provided a blank cheque to governments everywhere by making clear that attacks on the press will not be challenged or punished if the US has anything to do with it. </p>
<p>Only once has the murder of a journalist by a close ally of the US in the Middle East been investigated and declared unlawful, when an inquest into the death of British journalist James Miller <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/apr/06/israel.television">concluded he had been murdered</a>. To date, <a href="https://cpj.org/data/people/james-miller/">nobody has faced prosecution</a> for the murder.</p>
<h2>War on reporters</h2>
<p>Holding states to account for violence against media workers depends on robust international legal structures – and Britain’s <a href="https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/news/blog/brexit-begun-and-so-has-fight-keep-our-rights">withdrawal from the EU</a> and recent US attacks on the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-un-general-assembly-1.4837265">mission of the United Nations</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45474864">International Criminal Court</a> will certainly undermine these.</p>
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<p>Journalists reporting on the US president’s unusual political rallies have been penned in and his supporters have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/02/donald-trump-un-media-press-freedom-journalist-danger">encouraged to taunt and threaten them</a>). Trump’s populist condemnation of proper and necessary watchdog journalism by media organisations has set the stage for longstanding US hostility to journalism to become a new wave of state-tolerated or sanctioned anti-press violence. </p>
<p>As someone whose job involves preparing students for a career in journalism, I have to live with the knowledge that we’re in a new era of news, where reporters can be targeted with impunity – even with the encouragement of world leaders – for simply doing their jobs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Paterson receives funding from AHRC, British Academy.
(neither funded research project is related to this essay).</span></em></p>
The death of the Saudi columnist shows the hazards faced by journalists – especially if the US doesn’t like what they do.
Chris Paterson, Senior Lecturer in International Communication, University of Leeds
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105106
2018-10-22T16:41:39Z
2018-10-22T16:41:39Z
Saudi Arabia is a repressive regime – and so are a lot of US allies
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241678/original/file-20181022-105764-1nyhq9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump, like Obama before him, has enjoyed a close relationship with Saudi Arabia's royal family.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Trump/4f47df20a14a4b0888a8e88c116f080a/46/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The murder of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/europe/turkey-saudi-khashoggi-dismember.html">Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi</a> at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul has put the United States’ relationship with the wealthy Gulf power under <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/world/middleeast/jamal-khashoggi-killing-saudi-arabia.html">intense scrutiny</a>. </p>
<p>After weeks of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/pompeo-saudi-arabia-turkey.html">denying any knowledge about Khashoggi’s fate</a>, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman now says that Saudi agents strangled Khashoggi after a fistfight. Eighteen men have been arrested.</p>
<p>The Khashoggi affair highlights a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AOUBMM/">persistent oddity in American foreign policy</a>, one <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2015.1034570">I observed</a> in many years working at the State Department and Department of Defense: selective morality in dealing with repressive regimes.</p>
<h2>A panoply of dictators</h2>
<p>The Trump administration is <a href="https://www.apnews.com/9c79116125c740d084eaf3576d8958a8">revoking the visas</a> of some Saudi officials implicated in the death of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who lived in the U.S., Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced at an Oct. 23 State Department news conference.</p>
<p>Turkey claims to have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/world/middleeast/erdogan-khashoggi-turkey-saudi-arabia.html">audio and video evidence</a> that the Saudis tortured, assassinated and dismembered Khashoggi. Many of those arrested have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/khashoggi-saudi-prince.html">close links</a> to Salman.</p>
<p>But Trump has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/us/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-arms-deal.html">reluctant</a> to confront Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi. For weeks, he and other White House officials reminded critics that Saudi Arabia buys <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-security/obama-administration-arms-sales-offers-to-saudi-top-115-billion-report-idUSKCN11D2JQ">billions of dollars in weapons</a> from the U.S. and is a crucial partner in the American pressure campaign on Iran.</p>
<p>Their defense highlights why the U.S. has for decades <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007FI40QU/">maintained close ties</a> with some of the world’s worst human rights abusers. </p>
<p>Ever since the country emerged from the Cold War as the world’s dominant military and economic power, consecutive American presidents have seen financial and geopolitical benefit in overlooking the bad deeds of brutal regimes. </p>
<h2>Changing allegiances in the Middle East</h2>
<p>Before the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran was a close U.S. ally. Shah Reza Pahlavi <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/middleeast/years-of-torture-in-iran-comes-to-light.html">ruled harshly</a>, using his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/12/13/savak-jails-stark-reminder-of-shahs-rule/b2b37be2-356a-43e2-ba68-dd474e9023b0/?utm_term=.b82257b17760">secret police</a> to torture and murder political dissidents. </p>
<p>But the shah was also a secular, anti-communist leader in a Muslim-dominated region. President Nixon <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249664268_The_Persian_Gulf_British_Withdrawal_and_Western_Security">hoped</a> that Iran would be the “Western policeman in the Persian Gulf.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241639/original/file-20181022-105767-1n8n2y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nixon hosted Iranian Shah Reza Pavlavi at the White House in 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-/a6784660844b49a69c5fc2b4e34e53df/211/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the Shah’s overthrow, the Reagan administration in the 1980s became <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/31/iraq.politics">friendly with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein</a>. The U.S. supported him with intelligence during Iraq’s war with Iran and looked the other way at his use of chemical weapons.</p>
<p>And before Syria’s intense, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-war-in-syria-may-be-ending-but-is-likely-to-bring-a-fresh-wave-of-suffering-104635">bloody civil war</a> – which has killed an estimated 400,000 people and featured grisly <a href="https://theconversation.com/syria-chemical-weapons-and-the-limits-of-international-law-95045">chemical weapon attacks</a> by the government – its authoritarian regime enjoyed relatively friendly relations with the U.S. </p>
<p>Syria has been on the State Department’s list of <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/ct/list/c14151.htm">state sponsors of terrorism</a> since 1979. But presidents Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton all visited President Bashar al-Assad’s father, who ruled from 1971 until his death in 2000. </p>
<h2>Why Saudi Arabia matters</h2>
<p>The alleged assassination of Khashoggi by Saudi operatives may seem surprising because of the 31-year-old crown prince’s reputation as a moderate reformer.</p>
<p>Salman has made newsworthy changes in the conservative Arab kingdom, allowing women <a href="https://qz.com/1313101/saudi-arabias-women-are-finally-allowed-to-drive-a-car-on-their-own/">to drive</a>, combating corruption and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-crown-prince-talks-to-60-minutes/">curtailing some powers</a> of the religious police. </p>
<p>Still, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. </p>
<p>Women must have the consent of a male guardian to enroll in college, look for a job or travel. They cannot swim in public or <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/60339/things-women-cant-do-in-saudi-arabia">try on clothes when shopping</a>. </p>
<p>The Saudi government also routinely arrests people without judicial review, according to <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/saudi-arabia">Human Rights Watch</a>. Citizens can be executed for nonviolent drug crimes, often in public. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/26/saudi-arabia-criticised-over-executions-for-drug-offences">Forty-eight people were beheaded</a> in the first four months of 2018 alone.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia ranks just above North Korea on political rights, civil liberties and other measures of freedom, according to the democracy watchdog <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-country-scores">Freedom House</a>.</p>
<p>But its wealth, strategic Middle East location and petroleum exports keep the Saudis as a vital U.S. ally. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-visit-to-ally-saudi-arabia-shadowed-by-tensions-with-the-kingdom/2016/04/20/a0a987e0-06eb-11e6-a12f-ea5aed7958dc_story.html?utm_term=.ec236b5e369b">President Obama visited Saudi Arabia more</a> than any other American president – four times in eight years – to discuss everything from Iran to oil production.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241641/original/file-20181022-105751-1n9jelr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump inherited the Obama administration’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Saudi-Arabia-US-Obama/9dd3372647cc49c393cc2eee197e3589/60/0">AP Photo/Hassan Ammar</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>American realpolitik</h2>
<p>This kind of foreign policy – one based on practical, self-interested principles rather than moral or ideological concerns – is called “realpolitik.” </p>
<p>Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under Nixon, was <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2013/09/the-realpolitik-of-the-american-people/">a master of realpolitik</a>, which drove that administration to normalize its relationship with China. Diplomatic relations between the two countries had ended in 1949 when Chinese communist revolutionaries took power. </p>
<p>Then, as now, China was incredibly repressive. Only 17 countries – including Saudi Arabia – <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2018-table-country-scores">are less free than China</a>, according to Freedom House. </p>
<p>But China is also the world’s most populous nation and a nuclear power. Nixon, a fervent anti-communist, sought to exploit a growing rift between China and the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>Today Washington retains the important, if occasionally rocky, relationship Kissinger forged with Beijing. President Trump may be critical of Chinese trade practices, but he is largely silent on China’s ongoing <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-45474279">persecution of Muslim minority groups</a>.</p>
<p>American realpolitik is not limited to the Mideast. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the U.S. regularly backed Latin American <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/u-s-support-for-brutal-central-american-dictators-led-to-todays-border-crisis/">military dictators</a> who tortured and killed citizens to “defend” the Americas from communism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241672/original/file-20181022-105748-1ogzdak.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The U.S. supported Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military coup in Chile, which overthrew Socialist President Salvador Allende. Pinochet went on to murder 2,293 people and torture 30,000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Chile-Coup-Anniversary/1ffc40b46e52475eae3debfa3defb895/26/0">AP Photo/Enrique Aracena, File)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>US not ‘so innocent’</h2>
<p>U.S. presidents tend to underplay their relationships with repressive regimes, lauding lofty “American values” instead. </p>
<p>That’s the language former President Barack Obama used in September to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/7/17832024/obama-speech-trump-illinois-transcript">criticize Trump’s embrace of Russia’s authoritarian president</a>, Vladimir Putin, citing America’s “commitment to certain values and principles like the rule of law and human rights and democracy.”</p>
<p>But Trump defended his relationship with Russia, tacitly invoking American realpolitik. “You think our country’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/04/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin/index.html">so innocent</a>?” he asked on Fox News. </p>
<p>I can’t say he’s wrong. </p>
<p>The U.S. maintains close ties to numerous regimes whose values and policies conflict with America’s constitutional guarantees of democracy, freedom of speech, the right to due process and many others. </p>
<p>It has for decades.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia’s brutal treatment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is causing international outcry and some light <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/middleeast/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia.html">retaliation by the U.S. government</a>.</p>
<p>But American realpolitik suggests the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/politics/trump-saudi-khashoggi-midterms.html">tight U.S.-Saudi relationship</a> will continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Fields does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Critics say Trump’s defense of Saudi Arabia in the Khashoggi affair betrays American values. But many presidents have cozied up to dictators, ignoring human rights abuses to serve US interests.
Jeffrey Fields, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105201
2018-10-22T13:03:54Z
2018-10-22T13:03:54Z
What Turkey’s Erdoğan is seeking to gain in wake of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder
<p>Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan initially referred to the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2 as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/press-freedom-groups-urge-saudi-arabia-to-account-for-jamal-khashoggis-whereabouts-amid-claims-he-was-murdered/2018/10/07/65b0918a-c8d9-11e8-9c0f-2ffaf6d422aa_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6b0c71b677e7">very, very upsetting</a>”. Three weeks later, he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/oct/23/jamal-khashoggi-death-erdogan-turkish-parliament-live">told</a> the Turkish parliament that Khashoggi was killed in a premeditated and savage murder. Saudi Arabia has belatedly <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-45935823">admitted</a> that Khashoggi was murdered at its consulate in Istanbul, but has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-45935823">blamed</a> a “rogue operation” and denied the involvement of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.</p>
<p>Khashoggi’s elimination on Turkish soil was a political trigger that may provide Erdoğan with ammunition against Saudi Arabia – his main rival for political leadership of the Muslim world. With Islam’s two holiest cities of Mecca and Medina under their guardianship, the ruling Saud family boasts the title <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/695351">Custodians of the Two Holy Mosques</a> and govern the Hajj and Umra, pilgrimages that all Muslims are expected to make. </p>
<p>Yet shortly after accusations about Khashoggi’s alleged murder were drip-fed by Turkish authorities, Erdoğan spoke at a meeting with faith leaders as part of his bid to cement his religious legitimacy. He was <a href="https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/erdogan-turkey-is-the-only-country-that-can-lead-the-muslim-world-3463638">quoted by Turkish agencies</a> as saying that Turkey “is the only country that can lead the Muslim world”. </p>
<p>From his 2002 election as prime minister to his current presidency, Erdoğan has eroded Turkey’s historically secular framework. The Islamisation of Turkey has tilted it away from the West and toward the Middle East. Erdoğan “is focused on making Islam the centrepiece of Turkish politics and sees the country’s foreign policy role as being primarily anti-Western”, <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/where-does-erdogan-want-to-take-turkey">explains Soner Cagaptay</a> of the Washington Institute. </p>
<p>While Saudi Arabia’s royal family may be custodians of the two holy mosques, Erdoğan is <a href="https://theconversation.com/erdogan-seeks-to-expand-turkeys-influence-in-the-middle-east-through-diplomacy-and-force-93757">drawing on the glory of the Ottoman past</a>, investing in the expansion of Ottoman ports that served as transit hubs for Mecca and Medina, while also increasing his leadership activities in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). </p>
<h2>Crown prince’s image damaged</h2>
<p>In so doing, it’s inevitable that Erdoğan will clash with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. Colloquially known as MBS, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince presents Islam as a “sensible, simple religion that is being hijacked”, arguing that his domestic reforms are an attempt to counter radicalisation and <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2018/03/24/Saudi-Crown-Prince-Islam-is-a-rational-moderate-religion-that-is-being-hijacked.html">return Islam to a liberal stance</a>. Domestic reform, however, is contrasted with disastrous military operations in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2016/sep/16/how-saudi-arabias-airstrikes-have-hit-civilian-life-in-yemen">Yemen</a> and <a href="https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/saudi-arabias-master-plan-against-isis-assad-and-iran-syria">Syria</a>, as MBS seeks to prove his military might and leverage regional conflict to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/profile-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-170621130040539.html">counter Iranian influence</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the humanitarian costs of regional battles, MBS has <a href="https://www.rt.com/news/422858-saudi-pr-firms-yemen-terrorism/">cultivated the image of a liberal young leader</a> for Western audiences. So while Erdoğan pushes an Islamic Turkey to lead the Muslim world, MBS prefers courting the West while treating how he handles domestic affairs, whether through arrests or worse, as separate from his US and British alliances. </p>
<p>With the disappearance of Khashoggi, however, the liberal image palatable to Western audiences is under threat. The Washington Post, where Khashoggi was a columnist, is now writing about the crown prince’s “dark and bullying side”. MBS is a split royal, friendly to the West <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-dashing-prince-with-a-dark-and-bullying-side/2018/10/13/61f64ea0-ce41-11e8-a360-85875bac0b1f_story.html?utm_term=.cf0e26aea3eb">but ruthless in the Middle East</a>.</p>
<p>The pattern is clear: MBS’s Saudi Arabia uses reforms as cover to purge rivals of status and wealth. This was clear during the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/jamal-khashoggis-long-road-to-the-doors-of-the-saudi-consulate/2018/10/12/b461d6f4-ce1a-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html?utm_term=.1402e35454af">Ritz Carlton Roundup</a> in November 2017, in which princes and investors were detained in a luxury hotel as part of an anti-corruption purge until agreeing to forego much of their assets. Other reforms serve to distract international media by <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-reason-saudi-arabia-lifted-its-ban-on-women-driving-economic-necessity-97267">letting women drive</a> while <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-24/saudi-arabia-women-activists-jailed-as-driving-ban-ends/9900500">female activists remain jailed</a>. </p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has <a href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2018/8/31/mbs-aide-boasts-plan-to-dig-trench-around-qatar">led the ongoing blockade of Qatar</a>, which Turkey opposed. Turkey and Qatar’s mutual investments are not the sole reason. Both countries maintain relations with Iran and support the Muslim Brotherhood, which <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-03/saudis-are-after-the-muslim-brotherhood-and-turkey-s-in-the-way">Saudi Arabia regards as a threat</a> to traditional monarchy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/qatar-blockade-and-saudi-arabia-could-there-be-a-power-shift-in-doha-86592">Qatar blockade and Saudi Arabia: could there be a power shift in Doha?</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>Investors, sponsors and media partners of Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative conference, on 23-25 October in Riyadh <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5b397578-d077-11e8-a9f2-7574db66bcd5">have pulled out</a>. The IMF <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/16/business/christine-lagarde-imf-saudi-conference/index.html">has followed suit</a> and even US President Donald Trump is <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-u-s-wants-audio-and-video-related-to-khashoggi-disappearance-if-it-exists">being pressured by senators</a> to punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi’s fate. </p>
<h2>Erdoğan seizing opportunity</h2>
<p>Erdoğan is moving quickly. As the Saudis <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-cancels-annual-diplomatic-reception-washington-1799813034">cancelled their annual diplomatic</a> reception in Washington, Erdoğan <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pompeo-meets-turkey-s-erdogan-says-saudis-promised-accountability-over-n921016">received US Secretary of State</a> Mike Pompeo in Ankara. The meeting gave Turkey a chance to push its perspectives on Syria and its demands that the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, abandon Syria’s narrow Manbij region near Turkey’s border, a request the US has been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey/turkey-tells-pompeo-it-can-easily-clear-syrias-manbij-of-kurdish-ypg-minister-idUSKCN1MR163">slow to acknowledge</a>. </p>
<p>Having <a href="http://time.com/5426818/us-turkey-relations-brunson/">returned US pastor Andrew Brunson</a> from Turkish imprisonment to US soil, Khashoggi’s death and the pressure it is placing on Trump is providing Erdoğan with a springboard to gain a closer relationship with the United States while using the incident to deflect Saudi portrayals of Turkey <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/10/15/world/politics-diplomacy-world/jamal-khashoggi-murder-claim-seen-giving-turkey-leverage-saudis-trump/#.W8oGynrwZPY">as a security threat</a>.</p>
<p>Erdoğan is using the Khashoggi incident to gain closer relations with the US and push Turkey’s interests. On October 22, the Turkish press reported that Erdoğan and Trump shared a <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/erdogan-trump-hold-phone-conversation-on-khashoggi-138130">phone conversation</a> and agreed that Saudi Arabia must come clean on all details of Khashoggi’s death. </p>
<p>Yet Erdoğan’s dreams of leading the Muslim world may not be realised by the Khashoggi affair. <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2018/08/12/What-is-the-fate-of-the-19-billion-Gulf-investments-in-Turkey-.html">Saudi investment</a> in Turkey at a time when <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/turkish-inflation-soars-fueling-fears-of-an-economic-crisis/4556659.html">the Turkish lira remains weak</a> must be balanced with Erdogan’s ambitions and rivalry. The OIC, headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, <a href="http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/545598/SAUDI-ARABIA/Arab-leaders-organizations-express-solidarity-with-Saudi-Arabia">has officially sided with Saudi Arabia</a> in the wake of the Khashoggi affair, praising the proposal of a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation and arguing that Riyadh is “above suspicions”.</p>
<p>The world seems to disagree with the notion that Riyadh is “above suspicions”. However, <a href="http://time.com/5423350/jamal-khashoggi-turkey-saudi-arabia-iran/">commentators have pointed</a> to Iran as the main beneficiary of a Saudi exile’s death on Turkish soil. With Saudi Arabia’s reputation on the line, Riyadh is in no position to portray Iran as a threat to the region.</p>
<p>“Iran has repeatedly seized on Saudi miscalculations to gain leverage and protect itself from regional isolation,” says Chatham House’s <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/khashoggi-fallout-iran-benefits-another-saudi-misstep">Sanam Vakil</a>. While Saudi Arabia is cornered and the world distracted by the brutality of what happened to Khashoggi, Iran can continue quietly building its missile program, rework the nuclear agreement and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-oil-turkey/turkeys-tupras-in-talks-with-u-s-for-iran-sanctions-waiver-sources-idUSKCN1MS0ND">sell its oil</a> before US sanctions resume in November. Tehran may even consider relations with Saudi Arabia, its Sunni counterpart. After all, how many friends will Saudi Arabia have left?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolai Due-Gundersen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Jamal Khashoggi’s murder will have ramifications for the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Nicolai Due-Gundersen, PhD Candidate and Political Analyst, Kingston University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105276
2018-10-19T10:37:57Z
2018-10-19T10:37:57Z
Jamal Khashoggi: Casualty of the Trump administration’s disregard for democracy and civil rights in the Middle East?
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/12/saudi-arabia-fii-conference-withdrawal-jamal-khashoggi">The international crisis</a> over whether top Saudi Arabian leadership murdered U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is a striking example of the consequences of Donald Trump’s blanket disregard for democratic politics and human rights in other countries. This departure from decades of American foreign policy rhetoric remains comparatively undiscussed.</p>
<p>However, in the Middle East, <a href="https://www.umass.edu/jne/member/david-mednicoff">my area of expertise</a>, I believe this Trump policy shift opens the door to exactly the sort of flagrant attacks on individual freedom and safety that likely recently claimed Khashoggi.</p>
<p>Most criticism of Trump’s foreign policy has focused on two other <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/02/09/what-trump-is-throwing-out-the-window/">major departures</a> from decades of past American practice. </p>
<p>First, Trump has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/opinion/sunday/trump-china-america-first.html">rejected the cornerstones of the post-WWII international order</a> <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/liberal-world-order-rip">largely built by the U.S.</a>: deep alliances among Western democracies and global free trade. Second, Trump has shown <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/06/12/trumps-affinity-for-dictators-over-democrats/">an affinity for authoritarian rulers</a>, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, which has undermined American interests. </p>
<p>Yet, the Trump administration’s abandonment of support for democracy and civil rights hurts the interests of both Middle Easterners and Americans. </p>
<h2>Did the US walk the walk?</h2>
<p>In the past, U.S. leaders and officials within the government have shown interest in political rights and government accountability in other countries. Such talk has nonetheless often taken a back seat to considerations of geopolitical power or resources.</p>
<p>Perhaps the lack of attention to current U.S. disregard for democracy and rights in the Middle East has to do with <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/us-hypocrisy-cairo-tehran-1178298333">Washington’s inconsistency and perceived hypocrisy in the region</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232775/original/file-20180820-30608-10wvrxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232775/original/file-20180820-30608-10wvrxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232775/original/file-20180820-30608-10wvrxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232775/original/file-20180820-30608-10wvrxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232775/original/file-20180820-30608-10wvrxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232775/original/file-20180820-30608-10wvrxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232775/original/file-20180820-30608-10wvrxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, right, greets Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh in Washington in 1951. Two years later, the U.S. orchestrated a coup to oust democratically elected Mossadegh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even before the U.S. became a superpower after World War II, Western countries like England and France <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/07/the-real-reason-the-middle-east-hates-ngos/">trumpeted democratic values while engaging in colonial control</a> of the Middle East. This left a <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2015/10/post-colonial-states-and-the-struggle-for-identity-in-the-middle-east-since-world-war-two/">legacy of local suspicion</a> regarding the sincerity of Western leaders’ stated political values. </p>
<p>The U.S.’s own track record in the region of allying with repressive governments, mounting coups (<a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cia-assisted-coup-overthrows-government-of-iran">as in Iran in 1953</a>) and overthrowing leaders by force (as in Iraq in 2003) are among examples where the <a href="https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/americas-middle-east-challenge/">U.S. practiced a politics other than what it preached</a>. </p>
<p>At best, the U.S. has <a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20170531_R44858_01bf19e7dcbc238101ec9032c54b16d72a714551.pdf">embraced democratization and human rights</a> as <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/26/think-again-middle-east-democracy/">one of many goals</a> in the Middle East. More cynically, democratic talk could be seen as a cover for more <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2002/12/imperialism.html">imperialistic policies</a> in the region during and after the Cold War. </p>
<p>Yet these days even the pretense is gone that U.S. policy in the Middle East – or elsewhere – should advance political freedom. </p>
<p>When asked about why he refuses to criticize repressive rulers like Putin or Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Trump’s response is to question whether <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/04/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin/index.html">“our country’s so innocent</a>.” Denying that the U.S. is distinguishable from countries that penalize dissent, the current American leader disavows the very project of advancing democratic values abroad. </p>
<h2>Pretense matters</h2>
<p>Let me be clear that I am not suggesting that Middle Easterners should be, or are, dependent on foreign countries or activists for greater political rights. If so, why does an end to Washington’s inconsistent support for democratic politics and rights in the Middle East matter? </p>
<p>There are several reasons. </p>
<p>First, U.S. support for democratic values abroad – however variable – helps empower non-government organizations that consistently focus on rights in places like the Middle East.</p>
<p>That means <a href="https://www.hrw.org/">Human Rights Watch</a>, <a href="https://worldjusticeproject.org/">the World Justice Project</a> and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/30/the-new-politics-of-human-rights-in-the-middle-east/">local movements these groups help</a> can improve human rights and legal accountability in part because they have allies in Washington’s broader political culture.</p>
<p>Second, advocates for democratic rights exist within the U.S. government, and enjoy influence, even if their superiors are less constant in their support for democracy abroad. </p>
<p>So, groups within the State Department, and government organizations like <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/">USAID</a> or the <a href="https://www.usip.org/">United States Institute for Peace</a>, work to improve citizen capacity and rights in places like the Middle East. In more rights-oriented presidencies, such groups <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/07/impact-where-america-needs-it">can affect broader government policy</a>.</p>
<p>Even in administrations less focused on human rights, the rhetoric of support for democracy can be politically useful or persuasive. President George W. Bush partly justified American military overthrow of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2003 with the argument that a more <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/2003/11/07/a-bold-vision-for-the-middle-east">democratic Iraqi government might help transform the broader Middle East</a>. </p>
<p>Third, the lack of U.S. predictability around political rights in the Middle East can actually deter governments dependent on good relations with Washington from repressing their citizens. That’s because they can’t be entirely sure about political consequences. Tacit approval by the U.S. of human rights abuses could turn overnight into condemnation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232776/original/file-20180820-30599-j4kka8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232776/original/file-20180820-30599-j4kka8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232776/original/file-20180820-30599-j4kka8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232776/original/file-20180820-30599-j4kka8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232776/original/file-20180820-30599-j4kka8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232776/original/file-20180820-30599-j4kka8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232776/original/file-20180820-30599-j4kka8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Donald Trump greets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in 2017 in Saudi Arabia. Sisi has been accused of increasing repression in his country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The White House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, Egypt’s pre-2011 authoritarian leader <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-21201364">Hosni Mubarak was known for political oppression</a>. But he could not undermine democratic and human rights activists in his country altogether. He knew that, in a U.S. that provided billions of foreign aid to Egypt, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/1456332/Mubarak-cornered-over-US-push-for-Middle-East-reform.html">at least some policymakers scrutinized his coercive practices</a>.</p>
<h2>Lack of pretense matters</h2>
<p>Is it actually significant that the White House ignores political rights and freedom? </p>
<p>In the Middle East, the difference is large and palpable. </p>
<p>For one thing, increased deference to authoritarian leaders in the Middle East by the world’s most powerful democracy has allowed for the pursuit of deadly warfare and attacks on civilians. This is apparent in the actions of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/middle-east-civilian-deaths-have-soared-under-trump-and-the-media-mostly-shrug/2018/03/16/fc344968-2932-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html">Syrian leader Hafez el-Assad</a>, who has <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/syria-chemical-weapons-assad-trump/557483/">not hesitated to use chemical and other extreme weapons on his population</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/trump-yemen-saudi-arabi-war-us-involvement-worsening-crisis">the Saudi government</a> uses <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/19/us-supplied-bomb-that-killed-40-children-school-bus-yemen">U.S.-supplied weapons to wage war in Yemen</a>. The White House has not responded to the devastating civilian casualties.</p>
<p>More broadly, and as the Khashoggi affair highlights, the U.S.’s current lack of interest in political rights emboldens Middle Eastern governments to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/jamal-khashoggi-what-the-arab-world-needs-most-is-free-expression/2018/10/17/adfc8c44-d21d-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html?utm_term=.e631809b9348">crack down on dissent and the dissenters</a>, in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/europe/turkey-saudi-khashoggi-dismember.html">flagrant and shocking ways</a>.</p>
<p>Egypt under President Sisi is <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20170526-world-leaders-find-freedom-repress-era-trump">more repressive politically</a> than it was prior to 2011 under Mubarak. Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia may be committed to increasing Saudi prestige and the selective enhancement of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-change-youth-crown-prince-modernise-wahhabism-mohammed-bin-salman-a8019876.html">less puritanical social mores</a>. Yet he also has shown <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/how-mohammed-bin-salman-has-transformed-saudi-arabia/">little tolerance for political opposition</a>. </p>
<p>When the Canadian foreign ministry <a href="https://twitter.com/CanadaFP/status/1025383326960549889">tweeted critically about Saudi political arrests</a>, the Saudis countered by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudi-arabia-ruptures-ties-with-canada-serving-notice-to-would-be-critics/2018/08/06/5ad193f6-99a7-11e8-b55e-5002300ef004_story.html?utm_term=.86b3ff411550">expelling the Canadian ambassador and suspending trade, flights and Saudi student exchanges with Canada</a>. </p>
<p>Such a strong reaction is hard to imagine in the days when at least pockets of the U.S. government showed concern about human rights in the Middle East. In this instance, the Trump Administration refused to support support Canada, its democratic neighbor. Similarly, Trump’s response to Khashoggi’s disappearance so far is to <a href="http://time.com/5421537/trump-saudi-arms-sales-jamal-khashoggi/">highlight the importance of Saudi-U.S. ties, particularly in the realm of weapons sales</a>.</p>
<p>The upshot is that Middle Easterners have grounds to believe that Washington cares little for their basic well-being, their hopes for more responsive political systems and, in Syria and Yemen, their very lives. </p>
<p>The volcano of popular <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/10/21/middle-class-frustration-that-fueled-the-arab-spring">resentment against authoritarianism that erupted most notably in 2011</a>, known as the Arab Uprisings, may have been capped temporarily. <a href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2018/1/8/2018-from-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire">It has not quieted</a>. </p>
<p>People in the Trump administration purport to care a great deal about <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-saudi-idUSKCN18H00U">potential violence from Middle Easterners</a>. This is why it is puzzling that they side strongly with unelected leaders willing to use intimidation and violence to quell dissent.</p>
<p>It is tempting to argue that the inconsistency of U.S. efforts to further democratic values means that these efforts don’t matter. </p>
<p>At least in the Middle East, racked by ongoing war, the rising influence of autocrats, and increases in flagrant attacks on critical speech like Khashoggi’s death, I fear that the Trump administration’s abandonment of such efforts will in fact fuel more misery and anti-Americanism.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-trump-administration-casualty-democracy-and-civil-rights-in-the-middle-east-100366">an article</a> originally published on August 24, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mednicoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Trump administration’s abandonment of support for democracy and civil rights abroad may be behind the sort of attacks on individual freedom that likely claimed journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s life.
David Mednicoff, Chair, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, UMass Amherst
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/104998
2018-10-19T10:35:00Z
2018-10-19T10:35:00Z
Arms sales to Saudi Arabia give Trump all the leverage he needs in Khashoggi affair
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241346/original/file-20181018-67185-11iae4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">American-made F-15 warplanes fly over Riyadh.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mideast-Yemen-Saudi/392582a9aa2042288bb64ca504b4c4bf/1/0">AP Photo/Hassan Ammar</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Among Donald Trump’s many unusual characteristics as president is his frankness. </p>
<p>Last week, after the disappearance and apparent torture and murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Trump <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/13/jamal-khashoggi-trump-saudi-arms-deal/1630693002/">argued that “we would be punishing ourselves”</a> by canceling arms sales to Saudi Arabia over a human rights concern. Few world leaders, or former U.S. presidents, would have been so bold as to publicly admit that a Saudi journalist’s life is not worth the loss of arms sales.</p>
<p>And it’s true that the armaments relationship between these two countries is long-established and lucrative for U.S. companies, as <a href="https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/people.cfm?authorID=571">my own research</a> on the global defense industry shows. </p>
<p>However, the president has it wrong when he argues the U.S. would be “foolish” to use these sales as leverage with the Saudis, claiming they could just get their tanks and fighter jets from other countries. In fact it’s one of the best bargaining chips he has with the kingdom. </p>
<h2>An arms-buying behemoth</h2>
<p>Saudi Arabia is indeed a major weapons buyer. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/yb_18_summary_en_0.pdf">Saudi Arabia spent</a> US$69.4 billion on military expenditures in 2017, according to the <a href="https://www.sipri.org">Stockholm International Peace Research Institute</a>, the world’s leading research organization on conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Only the U.S. and China spent more. </p>
<p>But since it doesn’t have an arms industry – like the U.S. and China – Saudi Arabia must import most of that from other countries. That’s why, over the past decade, Saudi Arabia <a href="http://armstrade.sipri.org/armstrade/page/toplist.php">has imported</a> more armaments than every country but India. </p>
<p>And U.S. companies such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have benefited most from all that spending, making up the <a href="http://armstrade.sipri.org/armstrade/page/values.php">55 percent</a> of its weapons imports from 2008 to 2017. </p>
<p><iframe id="4zlVK" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4zlVK/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>That has made Saudi Arabia the top buyer of American arms, with 11.8 percent of all sales over that period. In fact, U.S. defense contractors have made almost $90 billion <a href="https://www.stripes.com/news/us/top-defense-contractors-keeping-quiet-amid-saudi-arabia-uproar-1.552011">selling</a> arms to Saudi Arabia since 1950. </p>
<p><iframe id="O2y5E" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/O2y5E/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In recent years, fighter planes like the F-15 and their spare parts have become particularly <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/15/657588534/fact-check-how-much-does-saudi-arabia-spend-on-arms-deals-with-the-u-s">important</a> to the weapons trade with Saudi Arabia because it needs them to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/iran-yemen-saudi-arabia/571465/">conduct</a> its bombing campaigns in Yemen.</p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/us-saudi-arabia-strike-30-billion-arms-deal/2011/12/29/gIQAjZmhOP_blog.html?utm_term=.b2ce778d0994">2011 contract</a> awarded $30 billion to U.S. defense contractors to produce 84 F-15 jets and other weaponry for the Saudi military. Boeing stands to earn $24 billion of this total, which the company <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2011/12/29/world/meast/u-s--saudi-fighter-sale/index.html">claimed</a> will support over 50,000 U.S. jobs.</p>
<h2>A bargain over human rights</h2>
<p>As president, Trump clearly hopes that the money continues to pour in and helps him with his “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-38698654/donald-trump-america-first-america-first">America First</a>” campaign, intended to create jobs for Americans.</p>
<p>It’s no surprise, then, that he made <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/trump-arrives-saudi-arabia-foreign-trip-170520063253596.html">his first foreign trip</a> as president to Saudi Arabia in May 2017. During the trip, he reportedly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/us/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-arms-deal.html">struck a bargain</a> with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: Trump wouldn’t lecture his kingdom on human rights, and Saudi Arabia would buy more American weapons. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, Trump’s claim to have secured $110 billion in arms sales has not materialized. Although the Saudis signed numerous letters of intent and interest, some of which had been <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2017/06/05/the-110-billion-arms-deal-to-saudi-arabia-is-fake-news/">approved</a> by the Obama administration, no new <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/10/10/after-khashoggi-us-arms-sales-to-the-saudis-are-essential-leverage/">contracts</a> have resulted, due mainly to lower oil prices and the Saudis’ costly war in Yemen.</p>
<p>So in the Khashoggi affair, it appears that Trump is eager to keep to his end of the bargain. He has avoided criticizing the Saudi government over its alleged role in Khashoggi’s disappearance to curry favor with the monarchy over arms sales. Even in the face of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/europe/turkey-saudi-khashoggi-dismember.html">Turkish reports</a> that Saudi agents tortured Khashoggi and dismembered his body and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/middleeast/pompeo-khashoggi-murder.html">U.S. intelligence supporting</a> those allegations, Trump has preferred to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/10/15/657522089/rogue-killers-may-have-murdered-saudi-journalist-trump-suggests">blame “rogue killers”</a> for any crime.</p>
<p>In defending this course of action, Trump <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/411271-trump-defends-110-billion-us-arms-sale-to-saudi-arabia">claimed</a> that “if they don’t buy [weapons] from us, they’re going to buy it from Russia or they’re going to buy it from China or they’re going to buy it from other countries.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241339/original/file-20181018-67185-15tbj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241339/original/file-20181018-67185-15tbj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241339/original/file-20181018-67185-15tbj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241339/original/file-20181018-67185-15tbj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241339/original/file-20181018-67185-15tbj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241339/original/file-20181018-67185-15tbj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241339/original/file-20181018-67185-15tbj5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smoke billows from a 2015 Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mideast-Saudi-Nation-at-War/502c555d233e4a73a1cbf2b38eab7ffa/58/0">AP Photo/Hani Mohammed</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>US leverage</h2>
<p>While it’s true that Russia and China are <a href="https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/yb_18_summary_en_0.pdf">indeed major exporters</a> of armaments, the claim that U.S. weapons can easily be replaced by other suppliers is not – at least not in the short term. </p>
<p>First, once a country is “locked in” to a specific kind of weapons system, such as planes, tanks or naval vessels, the cost to <a href="http://doi.org/10.1257/jep.8.4.65">switch</a> to a different supplier can be huge. Military personnel must be retrained on new equipment, spare parts need to be replaced, and operational changes may be necessary. </p>
<p>After being so reliant on U.S. weapons systems for decades, the <a href="http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a498941.pdf">transition costs</a> to buy from another country could be prohibitive even for oil-rich Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>The second problem with Trump’s argument is that armaments from Russia, China or elsewhere are simply <a href="https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1344">not as sophisticated as</a> U.S. weapons, which is why they are usually cheaper – though the quality gap is quickly decreasing. To maintain its military superiority in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has opted to purchase virtually all of its weapons from American and European companies. </p>
<p>That is why the U.S. has significant leverage in this aspect of the relationship. Any <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/10/14/saudis-threaten-retaliation-jamal-khashoggi/">Saudi threat</a> to retaliate against a ban on U.S. arms sales by buying weapons from countries that have not raised concerns about the Khashoggi disappearance would not be credible. And is probably why, despite worries in the White House, such a threat has not yet been made.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241340/original/file-20181018-67179-3z8696.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241340/original/file-20181018-67179-3z8696.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241340/original/file-20181018-67179-3z8696.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241340/original/file-20181018-67179-3z8696.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241340/original/file-20181018-67179-3z8696.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241340/original/file-20181018-67179-3z8696.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241340/original/file-20181018-67179-3z8696.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In many ways, Saudi Arabia is locked in to buying U.S. weapons such as missiles for F-15 fighters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-International-News-Saud-/04d1b04997dd4cbd98aee655486b42fc/20/0">AP Photo/Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Selling ideals for short-term gains</h2>
<p>Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has developed a global reputation as a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/365846-susan-rice-giving-up-uss-moral-authority-makes-a-mockery-of-america">moral authority</a> championing human rights. </p>
<p>Yes, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/19/opinions/trump-trip-abroad-human-rights-tasini-opinion/index.html">there have been many times when realpolitik</a> took priority.</p>
<p>But despite these moments, the U.S. managed also to maintain its authority by advocating respect for human rights as a global norm during the Cold War, and within many repressive regimes ever since.</p>
<p>With Khashoggi, Trump is choosing to give up that mantle completely by showing his priority is purely economic, regardless of the impact on the United States’ global <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/10/01/trumps-international-ratings-remain-low-especially-among-key-allies/">reputation</a>. Such a bald-faced strategy, in my view, sells American values short and weakens U.S. global credibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terrence Guay has received research funding from the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. </span></em></p>
Trump claimed that ‘we would be punishing ourselves’ by using US arms sales to Saudi Arabia as a bargaining chip over the disappearance of Khashoggi. A look at the arms trade shows why he’s wrong.
Terrence Guay, Clinical Professor of International Business, Penn State
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105021
2018-10-17T17:05:36Z
2018-10-17T17:05:36Z
How Turkey and Saudi Arabia became frenemies – and why the Khashoggi case could change that
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240863/original/file-20181016-165888-1gje27p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Things between Saudi King Salman and Turkish President Erdogan have become rather tense.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Turkey-Saudi-Arabia/537383b53b12444dbfb8a43550a55628/125/0">AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Oct. 2 <a href="https://theconversation.com/arms-and-influence-in-the-khashoggi-affair-104874">disappearance</a> of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his country’s consulate in Istanbul has put a spotlight on the deteriorating relations between Turkey and the Persian Gulf kingdom.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/16/middleeast/khashoggi-turkish-investigation-intl/index.html">Articles</a> based on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/turks-tell-us-officials-they-have-audio-and-video-recordings-that-support-conclusion-khashoggi-was-killed/2018/10/11/119a119e-cd88-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html">anonymous accounts</a> from Turkish officials report that Turkey has video and audio proof that Saudi Arabian agents detained, murdered and dismembered Khashoggi, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/14/world/middleeast/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia.html?module=inline">sharp critic</a> of his government who lived in Washington, D.C. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/16/recep-tayyip-erdogan-bombshell-saudis-may-have-pai/">raised the stakes</a> even further when he said that a search of the Saudi consulate showed evidence of toxic materials that were painted over.</p>
<p>The affair is just the latest to drive a wedge between the two key Middle Eastern powers – countries that have in the past shared close ties to each other and to the United States.</p>
<p>How did their friendship turn frosty? </p>
<p>I’ve <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ErTIYroAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">been studying and writing</a> about the region for decades. And like with many other relationships in the Middle East, it’s complicated – and that’s why the current crisis could lead to a surprising twist.</p>
<h2>Early days</h2>
<p>Although diplomatic relations between the Republic of Turkey and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia <a href="https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93Turkey_relations.html">were established</a> in 1932, neither country showed much interest in the other until the late 1960s.</p>
<p>Turkey’s secular ruling elite was more keen to have strategic and economic ties with the West than to the Arab world. Turkey joined the NATO alliance in 1951 – two years after its formation – and <a href="https://www.mepc.org/turkish-israeli-relations-their-rise-and-fall">maintained good relations with Israel</a> from the start, much to the disappointment of Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.</p>
<p>This began to change in the ‘60s and '70s when Turkey made two moves that led to stronger relations with Saudi Arabia and resulted in increased trade. In 1969, it joined the nascent <a href="https://www.oic-oci.org/home/?lan=en">Organization of Islamic States</a>, based in Saudi Arabia and intended to be a “collective voice of the Muslim world.” And in 1975, Turkey initiated diplomatic relations with the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/plo">Palestine Liberation Organization</a>, which sought to end the occupation of Palestinian territories in Israel. </p>
<p>Relations continued to improve in the 1980s but deteriorated in the '90s when the kingdom took Syria’s side in <a href="https://mepc.org/dams-and-politics-turkey-utilizing-water-developing-conflict">several disputes</a> with neighbor Turkey.</p>
<p>These ups and downs in Saudi-Turkish relations were partly a result of Turkey’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/04/20124472814687973.html">political instability</a>, including several military coups in the '80s and '90s. Relations tended to improve when Islamist or civilian parties – which felt close cultural and religious links with Turkey’s Muslim neighbors – were in power but worsened after the military deposed them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240871/original/file-20181016-165905-uw1m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240871/original/file-20181016-165905-uw1m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240871/original/file-20181016-165905-uw1m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240871/original/file-20181016-165905-uw1m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240871/original/file-20181016-165905-uw1m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240871/original/file-20181016-165905-uw1m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240871/original/file-20181016-165905-uw1m4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King Abdullah shake hands with Erdogan during the first visit of a Saudi monarch to Turkey since 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AP-I-TUR-TURKEY-SAUDI-ARABIA/0f32bebb0d27db11af9f0014c2589dfb/167/0">AP Photo/Umit Bektas</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Warmer ties</h2>
<p>Relations between the two countries found a firmer footing after the Justice and Development Party – commonly known as the AKP – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14683840500119544">gained power</a> in Turkey in 2002 and continued to improve throughout the decade.</p>
<p>In contrast to the secular governments that had ruled Turkey since 1923, the AKP and its leader Erdogan put a high priority on building stronger relationships with its Arab and Muslim neighbors. </p>
<p>The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the resulting change in the balance of power in the region brought Turkey and Saudi Arabia even closer together. Both were concerned about Iraq <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2007-02-23-voa56-66704917/559524.html">falling into</a> the hands of their <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/Turkish_Iranian_Competition.pdf">common rival, Iran</a>, whose military and political influence increased as a result of the invasion. They also wanted to contain Iran’s <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PB%20116.pdf">influence in Syria and Lebanon</a>.</p>
<p>As a result of these closer ties, in August 2006 the late King Abdullah <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/node/282954">became the first Saudi leader to visit</a> Turkey since 1966 and made <a href="http://www.abdullahgul.gen.tr/pages/visits/Guests/arsiv/8/">another trip</a> the following year. In return, then-Prime Minister Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia four times from 2009 to 2011.</p>
<p>The high-level diplomatic contacts fostered growing business and investment. Turkish exports of textiles, metals and other products to Saudi Arabia soared from <a href="https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/tur/sau/show/2016/">US$397 million in 2000 to $3.6 billion in 2012</a>. And Saudi businessmen who felt unwelcome in the U.S. and Europe after 9/11 saw Turkey as an attractive destination.</p>
<h2>A springtime chill in the air</h2>
<p>Relations took a sharp turn in the 2011, starting with the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/arab-spring">Arab spring uprisings</a> that led to the overthrow of governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.</p>
<p>As an advocate of <a href="https://www.merip.org/mer/mer205/what-political-islam">political Islam</a>, Erdogan <a href="https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201605231040089194-erdogan-turkey-policy/">welcomed the revolutions</a> and the new governments they yielded. The Saudi government, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/30/editorial-saudi-arabia-arab-spring">saw the revolts as destabilizing</a>.</p>
<p>This disagreement came to a peak when Mohammad Morsi, who was closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/world/middleeast/mohamed-morsi-of-muslim-brotherhood-declared-as-egypts-president.html">won that Egypt’s first post-Hosni Mubarak election</a> in 2012. Erdogan supported Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power, which was opposed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States like the United Arab Emirates. These countries had a long history <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/muslim-brotherhood-and-gcc-it-s-complicated-510074443">of hostility towards Muslim Brotherhood activities</a> throughout the Arab world and were concerned that these victories would energize the movement in their own countries.</p>
<p>The rift between Turkey and Saudi Arabia intensified after a military coup ousted Morsi in 2013. Erdogan strongly condemned it and <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/alarabiya-studies/2013/10/14/Turkey-s-relationship-with-the-Muslim-Brotherhood.html">gave the Muslim Brotherhood refuge</a> in Turkey, while Saudi Arabia <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/saudi-arabia-coup-egypt">offered</a> billions in <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/economy/2015/03/13/Saudi-announces-4-billion-aid-package-to-Egypt.html">financial aid</a> to cement Egypt’s new military rulers.</p>
<p>Relations took another hit in 2014 when Saudi Arabia actively <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/venezuela-malaysia-angola-new-zealand-win-un-council-seats-277962">undermined Turkey’s bid</a> to become a nonpermanent member of the United Nations’ Security Council.</p>
<p>More recently, Saudi Arabia and Turkey found themselves on opposite sides over the <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-tiny-qatar-keep-defying-its-powerful-neighbors-it-may-be-up-to-washington-79480">Qatar crisis</a> in June 2017. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt severed all ties with Qatar – and tried to enforce an economic blockade – over the latter’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups. They <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/saudi-allies-working-list-qatar-grievances-170616185627905.html">were also upset</a> with Qatar’s refusal to terminate its ties with Iran.</p>
<p>Turkey reacted by expanding its engagement with Qatar, offering economic aid and sending more troops to its small military base in that country. Indeed, Turkish food shipments to Qatar <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/turkey-stood-qatar-gulf-crisis-171114135404142.html">played a crucial role</a> in its ability to withstand the blockade.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240865/original/file-20181016-165924-li1thh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240865/original/file-20181016-165924-li1thh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240865/original/file-20181016-165924-li1thh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240865/original/file-20181016-165924-li1thh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240865/original/file-20181016-165924-li1thh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240865/original/file-20181016-165924-li1thh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240865/original/file-20181016-165924-li1thh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jamal Khashoggi, missing since Oct. 2, is believe to have been killed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pomed/26087328517/">Flickr/The Project on Middle East Democracy</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Interpreting Turkey’s response to Khashoggi</h2>
<p>So what does this all mean for the current crisis? </p>
<p>Western media have mostly portrayed Turkey’s handling of the latest incident involving Khashoggi’s disappearance <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/world/middleeast/jamal-khashoggi-turkey-erdogan-bin-salman.html">as an indication of deteriorating Saudi-Turkey relations</a>. </p>
<p>That might not, however, be the case. The Turkish government is trying to balance multiple conflicting goals in the way it handles this crisis.</p>
<p>On the one hand, it is trying to show a full commitment to discovering what happened and has put enormous pressure on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by leaking details of his government’s involvement. But I believe it is also mindful of preventing a further escalation of tensions with Saudi Arabia, which remains a <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2018/08/12/What-is-the-fate-of-the-19-billion-Gulf-investments-in-Turkey-.html">major investor</a> in Turkey.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Turkey is <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/turkish-inflation-soars-fueling-fears-of-an-economic-crisis/4556659.html">struggling</a> with a severe financial and external debt crisis at the moment and is desperately trying to attract foreign capital. A withdrawal of Saudi investment or tourists could worsen the crisis.</p>
<p>Erdogan’s initial hesitation in pointing the finger – leaving it to “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/turkish-police-audio-khashoggi-killing-consulate-181014141407360.html">anonymous officials</a>” – and his call for a joint investigation <a href="http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/545604/SAUDI-ARABIA/King-calls-Erdogan-thanks-him-for-forming-joint-investigation-team">gave Saudi leadership</a> time to come up with a response strategy, which appears to be blaming “<a href="https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/trump-on-khashoggi-could-ve-been-rogue-killers-1345077827602?v=raila&">rogue killers</a>.” </p>
<p>In this he seems to share <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45863334">President Donald Trump’s interest</a> in giving Saudi Arabia a face-saving way out of the crisis. The U.S. and the Trump administration also <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/411772-trump-saudi-arabia-has-been-a-great-ally-to-me">have a lot on the line</a> in their relationship with the Saudi government. </p>
<p>Interestingly, one result of this ordeal, which has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-10-16/skipping-davos-in-the-desert-in-khashoggi-s-name-isn-t-enough">plunged Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the West into chaos</a>, may be more cooperation and better ties between the U.S. and Turkey, which now have a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/a-murder-claim-gives-turkey-leverage-over-saudi-and-trump-too">great deal of leverage</a> over the kingdom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105021/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nader Habibi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The disappearance and alleged murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is worsening relations between US allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia. An expert on the region believes there may be a way out.
Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of Practice in Economics of the Middle East, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105064
2018-10-17T10:51:36Z
2018-10-17T10:51:36Z
Jamal Khashoggi disappearance a defining moment for Saudi Arabia’s relations with the West
<p>On October 2, Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered his country’s consulate in Istanbul to obtain the documents he needed to marry his fiancée. She was waiting outside. He <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/12/how-jamal-khashoggi-disappeared-visual-guide">never came out</a>.</p>
<p>Following days of reports of what might have happened to Khashoggi, who was an outspoken critic of the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish authorities are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/khashoggi-saudi-prince.html">investigating</a> whether he was killed inside the Saudi consulate. </p>
<p>Since bin Salman’s coming to power, Saudi Arabia has been pursuing a more aggressive foreign policy – through the seemingly unwinnable war in Yemen, the overreaction to a critical tweet by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-major-trade-implications-of-the-canada-saudi-arabia-spat-101306">Canadian foreign minister</a>, and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/06/qatar-blockade-unexpected-new-vision-isolation">blockade of Qatar</a>, to name a few examples. Domestically, bin Salman has pushed for social reform such as allowing <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-reason-saudi-arabia-lifted-its-ban-on-women-driving-economic-necessity-97267">women to drive</a> and opening cinemas, as well as attracting more foreign direct investment into the country. Yet in the meantime, Saudi Arabia has continued to <a href="https://cpj.org/blog/2018/09/new-saudi-arabia-ushers-in-even-more-repressive-cl.php">suppress any form</a> of criticism or dissonance, and has jailed those who speak out against the authorities. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-end-it-was-khashoggis-friends-who-silenced-him-104890">In the end, it was Khashoggi's 'friends' who silenced him</a>
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<h2>Alliances under pressure</h2>
<p>These latest accusations, coupled with past behaviour, raise questions for Saudi Arabia’s key allies, such as the UK, the US and France, at a time when their association with the Gulf kingdom is becoming increasingly controversial. In the UK, MPs from across the political spectrum have been rallying the government to take action. Conservative chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the MP Tom Tugendhat, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/13/uk-saudi-relations-khashoggi-tom-tugendhat">called for the UK</a> to reconsider its relationship with Saudi Arabia if the allegations are proven to be true. </p>
<p>In the US, a bipartisan group of senators <a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/menendez-corker-leahy-graham-letter-triggers-global-magnitsky-investigation-into-disappearance-of-jamal-khashoggi">triggered</a> the Magnitsky Act on October 10, which <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/magnitsky-act-apply-khashoggi-case-181011184312416.html">forces</a> the US president to investigate the allegations, report back to Congress within 120 days and potentially trigger sanctions against those implicated. </p>
<p>The UK was one of the first countries – albeit a week after Khashoggi’s disappearance – to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-call-with-saudi-foreign-minister">demand answers</a> from the Saudis. In a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-on-the-disappearance-of-jamal-khashoggi-by-foreign-ministers-from-the-uk-france-and-germany">joint statement</a> with France and Germany’s foreign ministers issued on October 15, the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, demanded a “credible investigation”. In the past, these three countries have often competed for defence contracts with Saudi Arabia. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2018/10/15/eu-s-top-diplomat-says-a-full-investigation-needed-into-khashoggi-s-disappearance">said</a> that she expected a “full investigation” in the disappearance. </p>
<p>Yet US President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-latest-trump-talks-to-saudi-king-dispatches-pompeo/2018/10/15/8dadc74a-d07a-11e8-a4db-184311d27129_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c89c7a2e0580">comment</a> following a phone call with King Salman, that “rogue killers” may have conducted an operation which killed Khashoggi, has given the Crown Prince and King a window of opportunity big enough to avoid accountability all together. If the murder is blamed on “rogue killers”, it would absolve the Saudi government of responsibility for the murder – although questions about the credibility of this statement remain. For the US, concerns remain over Iran’s influence in the region, and it views Saudi Arabia as an important ally to contain Iran. </p>
<p>In previous comments Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/15/donald-trumps-60-minutes-interview-eight-takeaways">seemed reluctant</a> to suspend arms deals with Saudi Arabia were the allegations about Khashoggi proven to be true. This would suggest Trump views the US-Saudi relationship as purely transactional, although he did <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pompeo-says-saudis-promise-to-punish-wrongdoers-in-khashoggi-case/2018/10/17/34bab87e-4f56-4fd6-be3f-0faf03e3439c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bddbdd511704">send his secretary of state</a>, Mike Pompeo, to Riyadh to meet with King Salman and ask for explanations.</p>
<h2>A test for ‘Global Britain’</h2>
<p>The Khashoggi case highlights a deeply problematic issue for the UK in particular. As part of the UK’s post-Brexit foreign policy agenda, dubbed “Global Britain”, the UK government has said it will seek to become the defender and upholder of the international rules-based order. At the UN General Assembly, British Prime Minister Theresa May <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-to-the-un-general-assembly-26-september-2018">said</a>: “We must stand up for our values by protecting those who may suffer when it is violated.” </p>
<p>Saudi Arabia’s relationship with its Western allies, such as the UK and US is crucial for security and trade relations. Yet, our recent <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/research-analysis/the-uk-saudi-arabia-security-relationship.aspx">research</a> suggests that there are more limited benefits – whether economic, political or strategic – to the UK from its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Instead, the UK’s international reputation is being damaged by association with the Gulf state’s aggressive foreign policy, particularly its actions in the conflict in Yemen, which has been <a href="https://news.un.org/en/focus/yemen">dubbed</a> the “world’s worst man-made disaster” by the head of the UN.</p>
<p>Silence from 10 Downing Street over the Khashoggi case will only diminish the UK’s reputation further, at a time when it is desperate for friends outside of the EU. Leading the international response and building a coalition with its European and transatlantic allies to advocate for accountability and justice, would, however, boost the country’s credibility on the world stage – aside from being the right thing to do. If the UK government is serious about holding states to account, and defending the international order as we know it, now is the time to show it. </p>
<p>Just as the Khashoggi case, if the allegations are true, has in a dramatic way shown Saudi Arabia’s disregard for human life, norms and international law – again, the UK government’s actions once it becomes clear what happened to Khashoggi will speak volumes about its foreign policy red lines and its commitment to an international rules-based order. To maintain its credibility on the global stage, the UK needs to demonstrate that those rules apply to everyone in the same way, foes or friends.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Armida L. M. van Rij received funding from the Oxford Research Group's Remote Warfare Programme for this study. She is a member of the Women in International Security (WIIS) UK Leadership Team.</span></em></p>
UK and US relations with Saudi Arabia were already under serious scrutiny – even before the disappearance of a prominent Saudi journalist.
Armida v., Research Associate in Security and Defence Policy at the Policy Institute at King's, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.