[ad_1]
WASHINGTON: Families of imprisoned Saudis called on Friday (Nov. 20) for the world to speak out as the kingdom hosts the Group of 20 summit, saying that challenging the kingdom’s international reputation was crucial to winning its freedom. .
As leaders of the world’s largest economies prepared for Saturday’s talks that went virtual due to the Covid-19 pandemic, activists organized a “counter-summit” in hopes of highlighting the kingdom’s human rights record. ultraconservative.
PEN America, the free speech literary group, called up the online forum amid continuing outrage over the 2018 murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, who was strangled and dismembered inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. .
“All of our relatives are in danger. They face the threat of what Jamal Khashoggi has seen on a daily basis,” said Areej al-Sadhan, who says his brother, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, was detained by the Saudi secret police in March. of 2018.
“Their voices will help keep them safe,” he said.
Abdulrahman al-Sadhan was detained at the Riyadh office of the Red Crescent humanitarian group, where he worked, after expressing views on human rights and social justice on an anonymous Twitter account, according to the family.
Areej al-Sadhan, who lives in California, says she has faced dark threats since speaking out about her brother, including a warning that she was going to “be thrown into the sewer system.”
One of the most prominent Saudis in custody is Loujain al-Hathloul, 31, a key figure in the campaign to allow Saudi women to drive and who was arrested in May 2018 weeks before the kingdom lifted the driving ban. women.
She has been on a hunger strike since October 26 when her parents visited her and found her “very weak and desperate,” said her sister, Lina al-Hathoul.
“We must not underestimate the power we have with our voices,” said Lina, who has lived in Europe for several years, at the counter-summit.
“Even a word asking about political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, saying their names, making sure they are not forgotten, it really is something that could save them.”
Jailed Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who has campaigned for the right of women to drive, appears in an undated image on her Facebook page AFP / –
EXPECTED CHANGE UNDER THE OFFER
Outgoing US President Donald Trump has sided closely with Saudi Arabia, praising its US arms purchases and hostility toward US adversary Iran.
Trump said of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “saving his ass” after a US Senate resolution, which followed a CIA briefing, found the powerful young royal responsible for the murder. by Khashoggi.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said at the counter-summit that he hoped President-elect Joe Biden would address human rights in Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s support for a type of Islam that “forms the pillars of global extremist movements.”
“It is about time that we recognize that Saudi Arabia is a deeply flawed ally and that our priorities in this relationship have long been skewed in a way that, in my opinion, does not benefit the United States in the long run.” “Murphy said.
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets in February 2020 with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who has cultivated close relations with the President of the United States, Donald Trump AFP / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers had urged the Trump administration to boycott the G20, seeing it as part of efforts to get Saudi Arabia to change its name without significant reforms.
Instead, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit him in person hours after the virtual summit.
Safa al-Ahmad, acting director of Saudi rights group ALQST, said the kingdom’s outreach efforts, such as inviting Western musicians, have been entirely geared towards improving its public image abroad without reforms at home.
“There is a limit to the hypocrisy and deception of the Saudi government. The reality is very, very different from what the government keeps claiming.”
