It helps other governments, including those of Turkey, Sudan, Egypt and China, commit transnational repression. Bin Salman’s campaign of repression is being coordinated and launched on American soil - a direct incursion on the sovereignty of the United States.īin Salman’s government doesn’t just target its own critics. Last month, US prosecutors indicted a Saudi man for lying to federal authorities in connection with an online campaign to threaten and harass Saudi activists living in the US and Canada. The Saudi government has targeted people in at least 14 countries with a range of physical and digital tactics, expertly levied to surveil, intimidate and repatriate its critics. And the regime exports its authoritarian control by pursuing those who have the temerity to criticize it anywhere they may live around the world.
Freedom house crack#
The Saudi government’s murder of Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul was the most notorious recent example of what has become standard operating procedure for authoritarians around the world: transnational repression - autocratic governments’ noxious practice of targeting, intimidating and harming critics beyond their own borders.Īs authorities continue to detain political prisoners, repress the rights of women, and crack down on internal dissent, Saudi Arabia is already one of the worst places in the world for political freedom. But global democracy is also at the table, whether it’s on the formal agenda or not.
There will be a great deal at the table on this visit - issues like energy, regional security and the climate. After once calling Mohammed bin Salman a pariah, the president now appears ready to accept a more normal diplomatic relationship with the Saudi government and the crown prince. President Joe Biden is heading this week to Saudi Arabia, looking to reorient a troubled relationship with a country whose de facto leader was, according to US intelligence, behind the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Yana Gorokhovskaia is a senior research analyst at the organization. Michael Abramowitz is the president of Freedom House. Opinion by Michael Abramowitz and Yana Gorokhovskaia
0 kommentar(er)
