Alya criticized Saudi Arabia: – Threatened for cyberbullying

LONDON / OSLO (Dagbladet): It was an afternoon in July 2018 and Alya al-Huweiti was terrified.

Around her, in the room of the Saudi Arabian embassy in London, she tells Dagbladet herself, was the ambassador himself and five other men. The intelligence chief of the embassy, ​​two cultural attachés and two investigators from the foreign authorities.

The embassy itself, where she herself had worked for three years, was closed for the day. Only they remained.

When she arrived in London in 2011, she was already a celebrity in her home country, having profiled and decorated the gallop rider since 1996. She trained the first Saudi women’s gallop team in 2005. She claims the authorities wanted to use that status for everything it was worth it.

Dagbladet has also attempted to communicate with the ambassador through his second previous workplace, so far without success.

According to Alya al-Huweiti, the following happened:

– The ambassador tried to persuade me to change what I wrote on Twitter. I was terrified. They wanted him to support the war in Yemen and stop criticizing the regime. They kept me there from 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm, the embassy itself had closed at 3:00 pm They constantly wrote down everything I said. They freed me when I promised to join and delete Twitter messages, Alya al-Huweiti tells Dagbladet.

– You’ve done it?

– I haven’t done what I promised.

Serious threats

Dagbladet recently revealed that the Foreign Ministry intervened when Saudi Arabia wanted diplomatic status to be granted to a ten-man security force, who work for the oil-rich kingdom’s embassy in Oslo. Both the Foreign Ministry and the PST were involved in the case, which ended with Norway refusing to grant nine of the ten security personnel diplomatic status.

The PST has linked the incident to Iyad el-Baghdadi, a well-known Saudi critic living in Norway and a friend of the murdered Jamal Khashoggi. El-Baghdadi himself has confirmed this to Dagbladet.

Baghdadi and Khashoggi met in Oslo in May 2018. Security personnel arrived in Oslo in July 2018, the same month that al-Huweiti was summoned to a meeting at the embassy in London. Iyad el-Baghdadi and Alya al-Huweiti have also kept in touch.

Alya al-Huweiti claims that the pressure on her has increased after the conflict at the embassy.

– When I said no to face the war in Yemen, the problems started. At the embassy, ​​I actually worked with the monitoring of students. They reduced my salary, changed my job duties several times, to worse positions, to other departments. Then there have been attempts to pressure or tempt me to go home.

– Why did you work for the same regime that you criticize?

– I chose to enter the opposition because of how the regime behaved, says al-Huweiti, who has left his job at the embassy.

– Have you received threats?

– I have received messages, both on WhatsApp and on Twitter, that they will throw acid in my face, that they will shoot me, that they will take me by car, that they will kidnap me, that I have to look over my shoulder. There have been photographs of a saw.

Lucrative offers

One of the men who, according to al-Huweiti, has tried to attract to his home, has been included in Time magazine’s list of the most influential people in the world. The name is Prince al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud. For a long time he was the richest man in Saudi Arabia. He has not made anything like threats, and the messages have been sent in a friendly tone.

But due to her great network and influence, al-Huweiti says she experiences it as if she’s being lured back home. It was also Prince bin Talal who sponsored her when she was active as a jockey.

Dagbladet has gained access to the messages you sent.

– Are you Alia ?, the prince begins in the first message.

According to al-Huweiti, it was dispatched on a morning in June 2018, during the same period when problems began at the embassy. Later in the conversation, which takes place on the WhatsApp messaging service, the billionaire writes:

– Why don’t you want to come to Riyadh and work in Walid’s stable? You can come as long as you want. We have a beautiful stable for horses.

– God willing, I can visit you soon. I will contact you when I arrive. I hope they [myndighetene, red anm.] will allow us internally [i landet] To participate and make our dreams come true, Alya al-Huweiti responds to the mighty Prince bin Talal.

The prince emphasizes:

– It must happen very soon. The job is really accepted and the horses need immediate help and care. Everything is 100 percent clear.

Dagbladet has contacted the prince on WhatsApp to get his side of the story. You have seen Dagbladet’s messages, but have not responded to questions. Alya al-Huweiti says other influential Saudis have also tempted her with a high-paying job, an expensive car and star status in her home country. All he had to do was start supporting the authorities.

– Poison threat

“There are two men on the way from Saudi Arabia to London. You have to be careful what you eat and drink.”

That message, al-Huweiti claims, was received in early August. The claim came from long-term contact in Saudi Arabia, he says.

– I received a message that two men from Saudi Arabia had flown to London with a dose of poison. The poison was specially designed to give no symptoms if you died from it, al-Huweiti tells Dagbladet.

– What happened after?

– I tweeted about it. Then I heard from Saudi Arabia that they were looking for my source in the royal courts. They wanted to know how the information got to me.

Both al-Huweiti and Norway-based activist Iyad el-Baghdadi independently tell each other that they each have their own contact internally in the royal courts of Riyadh. Contacts are alleged to believe that Mohammed bin Salman’s regime has gone too far in an authoritarian direction and has therefore begun to provide them with inside information.

Dagbladet was unable to verify the alleged poison threat and the embassy has not responded to questions about it.

The prestigious project

The story of Alya al-Huweiti has drawn attention in the Middle East after she recounted the threats to Al Jazeera. Its origin makes the case particularly inflamed.

Al-Huweiti is from the Howeitat tribe, which has been in a media-covered confrontation with the Bin Salman regime in recent years. The Crown Prince has launched NEOM “city of the future” as his most prestigious project. The extravagant city, to be built from scratch, will host future-oriented technology, businesses and tourists, and will be the crowning achievement of the Crown Prince’s so-called “reformed” Saudi Arabia.

The price should be around $ 500 billion. There’s just one problem: the tribal peoples had to be driven out so that the city could be built where the Crown Prince wanted. The authorities have killed a member of the tribe.

– I have led a campaign against the NEOM project, including on Twitter, says al-Huweiti.

– Why?

– Raise awareness about the crime that is being committed so that this prestigious project becomes a reality. I posted a video of someone who was killed, and the BBC and Bloomberg interviewed me to shed light on their fate. NEOM is bin Salman’s baby. He doesn’t want anyone to criticize him.

The Saudi Arabian embassy in London has not responded to Dagbladet’s questions.