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aidenborst

To punish Saudi Arabia with the "Khashoggi Ban," Biden mirrored a plan developed under ... - 0 views

  • When the Biden administration announced a ban on dozens of Saudis from traveling to the US in response to intelligence that the kingdom's powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had approved the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, it was rolling out a plan that had been spiked by the Trump administration and brought back to life once President Joe Biden took office.
  • While it's not unusual for an administration, especially early on, to use an idea that had been considered by past White Houses, it is notable that the Biden team would implement a policy that had been discussed at such high levels under Trump
  • The plan had initially been drafted by the Trump administration, which shelved it over fears of alienating the key Middle Eastern ally.
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  • "The work was done," a senior Trump administration official confirmed, noting that the plan was rejected by "consensus recommendation" after it had been sent up and discussed by the most senior officials in the Trump administration.
  • Once Biden was sworn in, new officials appointed to the State Department arrived with "a very similar concept already in mind," a Biden administration official said.
  • Ultimately, the list of 76 Saudis on the "Khashoggi Ban," whose names the State Department has said it will not publish, had been sent to Congress in February 2020 as part of a classified report of actions the department was considering under then Secretary Mike Pompeo, an official who has seen the lists told CNN.
  • Dubbed the "Khashoggi Ban" by the State Department, the measure issued visa restrictions on 76 Saudis and their families.
  • "It is fairly normal for departments and agencies to float previously considered policies up for review when new administrations come in," said Javed Ali, a longtime national security official who served under both Trump and President Barack Obama
  • "Any country that would dare engage in these abhorrent acts should know that their officials -- and their immediate family members -- could be subject to this new policy," a senior State Department official said in a statement. "We expect it will have a deterrent effect the world over."
  • When the intelligence report came out on Feb. 26, the Biden administration announced the "Khashoggi Ban," and the new sanctions aimed at the crown prince's protective team and one former senior Saudi intelligence official, Ahmad al-Asiri. But sanctions were never considered for MBS himself, according to administration officials. It was never a "viable option" and would be "too complicated," multiple administration officials said, with the potential to jeopardize US military interests.
  • Still unexplained is why on the day the long-awaited report was published, the Office of Director of National Intelligence quietly took it down and replaced it with a second version in which three names were removed.
  • "It was not some accident the three names were on one version of the report," the official said.
  • One of the three men whose names were removed, Abdulla Mohammed Alhoeriny, is a senior counterterrorism official whose brother is the head of Saudi Arabia's Presidency of State Security. It's not known whether he or the others are among the 76 who've been banned from traveling to the US.
yehbru

Biden and his top officials slammed Trump's lack of action against Saudi Arabia, MBS in... - 0 views

  • In the years prior to taking office, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and many of their administration's top officials harshly criticized President Donald Trump's lack of action against Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
  • Biden is now facing criticism for not following through on campaign promises to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the killing.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday announced visa restrictions that affected 76 Saudis believed to be involved in harassing activists and journalists, but he did not announce any measures against the crown prince.
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  • Psaki outlined the Biden administration's actions, including sanctioning the former deputy head of general intelligence and imposing visa restrictions on 76 Saudis believed to be involved with the Khashoggi operation, and said the White House "made clear that we expect additional reforms to be put in place" in their conversations with Saudi Arabia.
  • "There's very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia," Biden said in a 2019 Democratic debate. "They have to be held accountable."
  • "I think the administration has missed a tremendous opportunity to use a horrific, terrible event, the murder of this journalist Khashoggi to use that as a way to influence Saudi behavior and Saudi policies in a way that better reflect our interests and our values,"
  • Jake Sullivan, who is now Biden's national security adviser, harshly criticized the Trump administration's response to Khashoggi's assassination, saying in June 2020 the administration gave Saudi leadership a "blank check" to wrongly continue "jailing dissidents, curbing speech, punishing women, and murdering a US resident and prominent journalist in a grotesque and almost sort of ostentatious way."
  • "Prince Mohammed is not and can no longer be viewed as a reliable or rational partner of the United States and our allies,
  • "Obviously, we're going to continue to have a relationship with Saudi Arabia. They're an important relationship for the United States but his survival is interesting here, and I'm not sure survival would be as certain without the US support which he has at this point."
  • "We don't have to destroy our relationship with Saudi Arabia. We've all done business with Saudi Arabia. We've all been impressed with some ways in which they've helped us in intelligence and strategic thinking about the Middle East, but this is a crime of untold proportion to take a resident, US citizen and murder them in the Saudi consulate. And there have to be consequences,
  • The Biden administration ended offensive military aid for the Saudi-led war in Yemen last month.
  • Deputy UN Ambassador Jeffrey Prescott in 2019 said Trump refused to hold Saudi leadership to account for Khashoggi's murder.
aidenborst

Mohammed bin Salman: Biden administration never considered MBS sanctions a viable optio... - 0 views

  • The Biden administration never considered sanctions as a viable option against the powerful Saudi crown prince named as responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, even though the new President promised to punish senior Saudi leaders during the election.
  • Administration officials tell CNN there was little debate or tension inside the White House last week in the leadup to the release of a long-awaited intelligence report into the brutal 2018 murder of Khashoggi— and that the notion of sanctioning Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, was never really on the table.
  • The White House has been hammered over what many critics say was its weak response to the report's findings, especially given the administration's tough talk about recalibrating the relationship with Saudi Arabia, and Joe Biden's campaign promises of making the Saudis pay a price for their role in Khashoggi's murder.
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  • As CNN's KFile reported, in the years before taking office, many of the administration's top officials harshly criticized President Donald Trump's lack of action against Saudi Arabia and bin Salman.
  • Sanctioning the crown prince, known as MBS, would have been "too complicated," according to two administration officials, and could have jeopardized US military interests in the kingdom.
  • One central reason: MBS has near complete control over all the country's levers of power. He is not only the crown prince, he is the deputy prime minister, defense minister, chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, chairman of the Council of Political and Security Affairs and the head of Aramco, the state-owned oil and natural gas company.
  • The White House has stood its ground over the last few days, defending its decision to spare MBS, though struggling at times to explain its rationale.
  • Psaki added that as President, Biden's role "is to act in the national interest of the United States. And that's exactly what he's doing."
  • "We are working to put the US Saudi relationship on the right footing," Price told reporters on Monday.
  • That's all done little to appease angry lawmakers, including many Democrats, who have lashed out at the Biden team's decision not to sanction MBS. Despite the Biden administration's tough talk, the full recalibration that they promised "did not happen," said a Democratic aide on Capitol Hill.
  • The Biden administration also failed to keep Congress informed in the run-up to the actions they planned to take, two congressional aides said.
  • A bipartisan group of lawmakers immediately announced last week that more needed to be done to hold MBS accountable, and some are working up legislation.
  • "I don't think he does go far enough, although you have to give him credit because he's actually increased sanctions and he's increased the travel bans on those individuals who were directly responsible," Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week."
  • "I don't think anybody thinks that the crown prince was not responsible, in other words, that he knew about it and that he approved of it," Portman added. "So, I do think there ought to be something additional that focuses on him."
  • "There's obviously a difficult balance that the Biden administration is trying to strike here," she added. "The administration is doing a really good balancing act where Biden is saying they are not going to condone the transactional approach or Whatsapp diplomacy."
  • "There's no question he and other top advisors view Saudi Arabia as far too important to justify" MBS sanctions, the former administration official said.
mariedhorne

Saudi Arabia Curbs Death Penalty in Move to Soften Image - WSJ - 0 views

  • Saudi Arabia Curbs Death Penalty in Move to Soften Image - WSJSaudi Arabia Curbs Death Penalty in Move to Soften Image - WSJRIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Saudi Arabia said Monday it had imposed a moratorium on capital punishment for drug-related offenses that led to an 85% reduction in executions, as the conservative Muslim kingdom seeks to soften its image to attract Western tourists and foreign investment.
  • The state-backed Human Rights Commission said 27 executions were recorded in 2020. That is down from 184 the year before, according to rights watchdog Amnesty International, when Saudi Arabia trailed only China and Iran globally.
  • Prince Mohammed, the 35-year-old de facto ruler, has previously said the government was working to change the law to reduce the punishment for some crimes from execution to life in prison.
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  • “This is a required step and now we hope to increase alternative punishments after long years of increased killing,” Mr. Hajji said. “But we want that to be done in a lawful and disciplined way, not randomly and arbitrarily.”
  • The 2018 killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate sparked global outrage and government pledges of justice for the perpetrators. Five people convicted in Mr. Khashoggi’s murder were initially given the death penalty, but their sentences were reduced to 20-year prison terms after his son said he forgave them.
anniina03

Saudi Prince: U.S. Congress Get Off 'High Moralistic Horses' | Time - 0 views

  • Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and an influential royal family member, told U.S. lawmakers to get off their “high moralistic horses” as ties between the historical allies remain frayed a year after the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
  • Prince Turki criticized congressional representatives on Wednesday for the “horror” and “disdain” they express for Saudi Arabia, saying U.S. lawmakers are unable to perform their jobs to address “issues of racism and racial inequality” and to reform gun ownership laws.
  • The murder last year of Khashoggi, a U.S resident and Washington Post columnist, as well as the long-running war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the detention of Saudi female activists have all strained the kingdom’s relations with much of the Washington establishment outside the White House.
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  • How many congressional leaders “have deigned to pay a visit to the kingdom?” Prince Turki said at the event. “Should they visit Riyadh they may learn something about universal health care, which the kingdom has provided for its citizens since its establishment” or “they may get an insight into our improving and evolving educational system.”
  • Saudi Arabia has been working hard to remake its image since the Khashoggi killing, marketing it as a tourist destination. It is building major tourism projects, transforming its Red Sea coastline to bring in holidaymakers and developing an entertainment city near the capital of Riyadh. The kingdom also said it plans to drop a requirement for men and women who visit to prove they’re related in order to share a hotel room.
  • Last month, Saudi Arabia announced it would drop its strict dress code for foreign women, who will no longer be required to wear an abaya, the flowing cloak that’s been mandatory attire for decades. “Modest clothing” will still be called upon, according to Ahmed Al-Khateeb, chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage.
Javier E

Jamal Khashoggi and Trump's New Cold War - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • His critics should not be content with protesting his cover-up of Khashoggi’s murder. They should not even be content with ending America’s complicity in the war in Yemen. The root of the problem is the Trump administration’s effort to escalate confrontation in a part of the world that desperately needs less of it. If Democrats gain power in Congress this fall, that’s the target at which they must take aim.
ethanshilling

Liberals Grow Impatient With President Biden's Foreign Policy Decisions - The New York ... - 0 views

  • Earlier this week, Biden administration officials passed around with bemusement some words of praise from an unexpected source: Jared Kushner.
  • In an opinion essay for The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Kushner, former President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser on Middle East issues, said that President Biden “did the right thing” and had “called Iran’s bluff” by refusing to make new concessions to lure Tehran into talks about restoring a nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration.
  • “I would take this in the Biden White House as a giant, blinking red light that maybe what I’m doing is not right because Jared Kushner is finding ways to praise it,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama who worked closely on the 2015 nuclear agreement
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  • Iran is just one of several foreign policy issues frustrating Mr. Biden’s base two months into his presidency.
  • The Middle East, which Biden officials hope to de-emphasize as they turn America’s attention to China, is the source of many complaints. Topping the list is Mr. Biden’s decision not to unilaterally rejoin the Iran nuclear deal by reversing harsh sanctions imposed on Tehran by Mr. Trump after he abandoned the agreement in 2018.
  • After seeing Mr. Biden deliver a transformational $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, progressives are asking why his foreign policy feels so conventional.
  • Some prominent liberals call those moves welcome, but also low-hanging fruit, and say that on matters requiring harder trade-offs and political courage, Mr. Biden is too risk-averse.
  • On Wednesday, Mr. Biden fueled the discontent when he conceded in an interview with ABC News that it would be “tough” to meet a May 1 deadline, set under the Trump administration, to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, a high priority for liberals impatient to end what they call “endless” American wars.
  • “The Biden administration has bought the Trump analysis that these sanctions give America leverage, even though the sanctions didn’t give Trump any leverage on Iran,” said Joseph Cirincione, a longtime arms control expert who consulted closely with Obama administration officials over the nuclear deal.
  • Critics of Mr. Biden’s early Middle East policy have focused their attention on Brett McGurk, the National Security Council’s coordinator for the region.
  • Mr. McGurk helped shape Mr. Biden’s decision, decried on the left, not to directly punish Prince Mohammed even after the White House declassified an intelligence report that found that he, the de facto Saudi leader, approved the operation that led to the murder of Mr. Khashoggi in 2018.
  • Even before that disclosure, many liberals complained that “the Biden foreign policy team includes no one who has been a clear and consistent opponent of our disastrous interventions across the world,”
  • On Tuesday, a group of Democratic Senate and House members called for a $12 billion increase to the U.S. international affairs budget to fund diplomacy.
  • Ms. Lee is also among those weary of extended deadlines for withdrawals from Afghanistan like the one Mr. Biden hinted at on Wednesday.“We’ve got to bring our troops home,” she said, “and we’ve got to do that quickly.”
yehbru

Opinion: It's time to treat Putin's Russia like the rogue regime it is - CNN - 0 views

  • Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny was nearly killed with a rare nerve agent before he recovered from a coma and went on to trick one of his apparent assassins into confessing to the details of the plot on tape.
  • Russia, under strongman Vladimir Putin's watch, has become a rogue regime apparently responsible, despite its loud denials, for a growing list of egregious crimes.
  • assassinations of political targets at home and abroad -- some with banned chemical weapons -- to Russia's ongoing invasion of neighboring Ukraine and a hacking campaign of unprecedented scope against the United States, and it's clear that Putin has become bolder and more dangerous than ever.
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  • "I remember the first time (Kasparov) was in jail, he didn't eat a thing because he was afraid that they'd poison him. And we all laughed at him! We thought he was paranoid. He is the only person I know who took any security measures."
  • Navalny's brilliant sting operation won't lead to an arrest and may only increase the chances he'll be targeted again with a less subtle method
  • Putin, who worked as a KGB officer before his political ascendance, once said himself that "there's no such thing as former KGB man." While he has always prioritized the security services during his two decades in power, the decay within Russia's intelligence agency is obvious as the country stagnates under dictatorship
  • But you don't have to be a master assassin when you can keep trying with impunity, even after being caught red-handed.
  • I don't fly with the state-owned airline Aeroflot, and I don't travel to countries where Putin might be able to put pressure on local authorities to do him a favor. But no one is untouchable in a world where criminals go unpunished.
  • The Kremlin has doubled down on its lies and denials, spreading a flood of contradictory stories by officials and in the state-run media. Putin himself was dismissive as usual, refusing to even mention Navalny by name when asked about the case. He denied the poisoning, saying, "If (FSB agents) wanted to, they would've probably finished it."
  • Even in the face of one of the worst cyberattacks in US history, Trump has refused to call out Russia as the culprit, even when his own secretary of state said, "We can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity."
  • Putin's henchmen are sloppy because they can afford to be. Just like their boss, they don't fear any repercussions
  • Meanwhile, the Trump administration is sending a clear message to all despots as it considers granting legal immunity for Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who ordered the gruesome killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to the CIA
  • Yet, there is always talk about the need for more international engagement with these despots and thugs, not less. The dubious theory that globalization and closer economic ties will inevitably liberalize dictatorships has been refuted many times over. We see this with China's Xi Jinping, who has become more authoritarian and aggressive since the US welcomed China into the World Trade Organization. Instead, engagement -- or appeasement by another name -- reinforces their sense of impunity
  • Russia and some of Putin's oligarchs have already been under piecemeal sanctions since the 2014 invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. But these sanctions are merely a slap on the wrist, and it's clear they do not go far or high enough.
delgadool

Candidate Biden Called Saudi Arabia a 'Pariah.' He Now Has to Deal With It. - The New Y... - 0 views

  • His plan, he said, was to make the Saudis “pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are.”
  • Now, as president, Mr. Biden must deal with that government, whether it has redeeming value or not. And he must navigate a series of campaign promises to cut off arms shipments and make public the American intelligence conclusions about the role of Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and the de facto leader of the country, in the killing of the dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
  • But the issue of protocol is less important than the sharp shift in the way the Saudis are being treated.
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  • “The president’s intention, as is the intention of this government, is to recalibrate our engagement with Saudi Arabia,”
  • Nearly three weeks ago, at the State Department, Mr. Biden ordered an end to arms sales and other support to the Saudis for a war in Yemen that he called a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”
  • The Trump administration issued sanctions against 17 Saudis involved in the killing. But the administration never declassified the findings
  • “Even the Trump administration found itself forced to take action” against the other 17, Ms. Whitson said.
  • “The message to the Saudis has to be to get rid of this guy,” she said.
Javier E

Republicans begin to target Putin 'apologists' in their midst - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • The thing about the Republican Party is that it’s not so much that it likes Putin or even thinks he’s an okay guy. Polling last year showed fewer than 1 in 10 Republicans had a favorable view of Putin or trusted him to do the right thing on the world stage, and Republicans said 76 percent to 16 percent that Putin is a war criminal. These are not in line with Carlson’s professed worldview.
  • But a significant and influential segment of the party has demonstrated a tendency toward a brand of moral relativism and even authoritarianism that creates an opening for giving Putin a pass.
  • Shortly after it was revealed in late 2016 that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump, an Economist/YouGov poll showed a sharp increase in favorable GOP views of Putin. Suddenly, 37 percent had a favorable view, and 47 percent had an unfavorable one. Just 14 percent had a “very” unfavorable view of him.
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  • Early 2017 Gallup data echoed this. It showed 32 percent of Republicans suddenly liked the man who had just interfered in an American election.
  • Another poll I keep coming back to comes from Vanderbilt University last year. Even a year into Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it showed a majority of MAGA Republicans (52 percent) said Putin was a better president than Joe Biden.
  • Maybe these Republicans just disliked Biden that much, or maybe they saw something admirable in Putin’s strongman mystique (a sentiment Trump has spent years cultivating). It certainly wouldn’t be the only evidence of Trump supporters flirting with the merits of authoritarianism.
  • Regardless, the data show how, when these loud voices on the right project softness on Putin or his invasion of Ukraine, there’s a willingness to hear that out — even if the base doesn’t actually like Putin. Influential voices on the right have spent years creating a permission structure for shrugging at things like Navalny’s death (see: Jamal Khashoggi).
  • there’s been little in the way of a desire to fight back against these noisy and influential forces — in part because that would entail going against the most powerful Republican and the onetime most influential conservative commentator.
Javier E

Opinion | The Authoritarian's Worst Fear? A Book - The New York Times - 0 views

  • In 2017, the Communist Party formally took control of all print media, including books.
  • Wherever authoritarian regimes are growing in strength, from Brazil, to Hungary, to the Philippines, literature that expresses any kind of political opposition is under a unique, renewed threat. Books that challenge normative values, especially those with L.G.B.T. themes, have been hit especially hard. History textbooks crafted by independent scholars are being replaced with those produced by the state at a disturbing rate
  • Last month, the Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s education minister Ziya Selcuk revealed — proudly — that 301,878 books had been taken out of schools and libraries and destroyed. All these books were purportedly connected to Fethullah Gulen,
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  • At the extreme end of the scale, ISIS notoriously burned over 100,000 rare books and manuscripts housed in the Mosul Public Library, some dating back a millennium.
  • Regimes are expending so much energy attacking books because their supposed limitations have begun to look like strengths: With online surveillance, digital reading carries with it great risks and semi-permanent footprints; a physical book, however, cannot monitor what you are reading and when, cannot track which words you mark or highlight, does not secretly scan your face, and cannot know when you are sharing it with others.
  • There is an intimacy to reading, a place created in which we can imagine the experiences of others and experiment with new ideas, all within the safety and privacy of our imaginations
  • Research has proved that reading a printed book, rather than on a screen, generates more engagement, especially among young people
  • Books make us empathetic, skeptical, even seditious. It’s only logical then that totalitarian regimes have made their destruction such a visible priority. George Orwell knew this well: the great crime that tempts Winston in “1984” is the reading of a banned book.
  • The tepid response of the Trump administration to the murder and dismemberment of the Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi is just the most egregious example of why the global defense of freedom of the press and speech is no longer an American priority
  • In classic dystopian novels of the near-future — “Brave New World,” “1984,” “Fahrenheit 451” — the digital world is ubiquitous. The ghostly absence of books, and the freethinking they seed, is the nightmare. For much of the world, it’s not an impossible fate
anonymous

Loujain al-Hathloul: Saudi woman activist jailed for five years - 0 views

  • A prominent Saudi female activist, who campaigned for women's right to drive, has been sentenced to more than five years in prison.
  • the country's Specialised Criminal Court, which was set up to try terrorism cases, convicted her of various charges including trying to harm national security and advance a foreign agenda.
  • They have also said that she has been tortured in jail - accusations the court dismissed.
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  • Hathloul was detained just weeks before Saudi women were finally allowed to drive in 2018 - the cause she championed.
  • Human rights experts have said her trial did not meet international standards.
  • The case is seen as further damaging the reputation of Saudi Arabia's controversial de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, known as MBS.
  • he has also been condemned for the continued crackdown on rights activists, as well as the Saudi authorities' role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
  • When Joe Biden takes over as US president, he is expected to take a tougher stance on human rights violations.
clairemann

Could a Joe Biden Presidency Help Saudi Political Prisoners? | Time - 0 views

  • Saudi Arabian legal scholar Abdullah Alaoudh has become adept at spotting state-backed harassment.
  • “take advantage of what they called the chaos in the U.S. and kill me on the streets,” Alhaoudh tells TIME
  • Although the message ended with a predictable sign-off, “your end is very close, traitor,” Alaoudh was more struck by what he took to be a reference to protests and unrest in the months leading up to the U.S. elections.
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  • For dissidents living outside the Kingdom, the American election has personal as well as political implications. On one side is an incumbent who has boasted he “saved [Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s] ass”
  • On the other is Democratic challenger Joe Biden, who last year said he would make Saudi Arabia a “pariah,” singled out the kingdom for “murdering children” in Yemen, and said there’s “very little social redeeming value in the present Saudi leadership.”
  • Saudi Arabia was the destination for Trump’s first trip overseas in May 2017, a visit that set the tone for the strong alliance that has persisted ever since.
  • “but what I’m sure of is that a Biden Administration would not be as compliant and affectionate with Saudi Arabia as Trump has been.”
  • Al-Odah is one of hundreds detained or imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for activism of criticism of the government. He was arrested only hours after he tweeted a message to his 14 million followers calling on Saudi Arabia to end its blockade of the tiny Gulf Emirate of Qatar, Alaoudh says.
  • Court documents list al-Odah’s charges as including spreading corruption by calling for a constitutional monarchy, stirring public discord, alleged membership of the Muslim Brotherhood, and “mocking the government’s achievements.”
  • For some, like Alaoudh, those words offer a glimmer of hope that relatives detained in the kingdom might have improved prospects of release should Biden win in November
  • ranging from 450,000 to “a million,” (the actual total is between 20,000 to 40,000, according to May report by the Center for International Policy.)
  • But subsequent behind-the-scenes meetings between Trump’s special advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s and King Salman’s son Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) proved at least as significant as the President’s headline announcements.
  • the historic ties between the U.S. and the Al Saud that date back to 1943, or business interests in the region is unclear, says Stephen McInerney, Executive Director at the non-partisan Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED). What is clear, he says, is that “Trump and his family—and in particular Jared Kushner—have close personal ties to Mohammed Bin Salman.”
  • That closeness has translated into a reluctance to confront Saudi Arabia over its human rights abuses.
  • “at times there has been real bipartisan frustration or even outrage with him.”
  • Trump publicly mulled the possibility he was killed by a “rogue actor” — in line with what would become the Saudi narrative as outrage grew.
  • “I have no doubt that Donald Trump did protect and save whatever part of MBS’s body,”
  • Callamard says she would expect a Biden administration, “at a minimum, not to undermine the U.S.’s own democratic processes,” as Trump did in vetoing bipartisan bills pertaining to the Khashoggi murder and the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia that were used in the Yemen war.
  • President Biden to not “justify violations by others or suggest that the U.S. doesn’t care about violations because of its economic interests.”
  • “end US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.” The statement adds that Biden will “defend the right of activists, political dissidents, and journalists around the world to speak their minds freely without fear of persecution and violence.”
  • “I think there would be some international debate between those who want a very assertive change in the U.S.–Saudi relationship and those who would be more cautious,” says McInerney. “The more cautious approach would be in line with historical precedent.”
  • Saudi authorities tortured and sexually abused al Hathloul while she was in prison, her family says. On Oct 27, Hathloul began a new hunger strike in protest at authorities’ refusal to grant her a family visit in two months.
  • The only thing that allows them to ignore all the international pressure is that the White House has not talked about it, and has not given a clear message to the Saudis telling them that they don’t agree with this,” Hathloul says.
  • If Trump is re-elected, then experts see little chance of him changing tack—in fact, says Callamard, it would pose “a real test” for the resilience of the democratic institutions committed to upholding the rules-based order.
  • “Just the fact that we are filing the lawsuit here in Washington D.C. is a sign that we still have faith that there are other ways to pressure the Saudi government,”
criscimagnael

Journalists in El Salvador Targeted With Spyware Intended for Criminals - The New York ... - 0 views

  • El Salvador’s leading news outlet, El Faro, said on Wednesday that the phones of a majority of its employees had been hacked with the spyware Pegasus, which has been used by governments to monitor human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.
  • the spyware had been installed on the phones of 22 reporters, editors and other employees between July 2020 and November 2021.
  • El Faro was investigating the Salvadoran government’s clandestine connections to the country’s gangs and corruption scandals. The government has denied any connection to local gangs.
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  • “It’s completely unacceptable to spy on journalists,” said Carlos Dada, the founder and director of El Faro. “It endangers our sources, it limits our work and it also endangers our families.”
  • An El Faro journalist’s phone had been reinfected with the spyware over 40 times, the most persistent hacking attempt by Pegasus yet to be discovered.
  • Revelations that Pegasus software has been used to unjustly spy in El Salvador may not come as a complete surprise, but there is no match to our outrage.”
  • El Salvador’s government denied responsibility, and a spokesperson with NSO Group would not say whether Pegasus spyware had been provided to El Salvador’s governments, past or present.
  • “The government of El Salvador is investigating the possible use of Pegasus,”
  • a prized Israeli technology company whose spyware has long been under scrutiny for its ability to capture all activity on a smartphone — including a user’s keystrokes, location data, sound and video recordings, photos, contacts and encrypted information — and for mounting allegations of misuse by repressive governments.
  • The spokesman added that the company does not know who the targets of its customers are, but that NSO works to ensure that its tools are used only for authorized purposes.
  • The Biden administration blacklisted NSO Group in November, stating that the company had knowingly supplied spyware used by foreign governments to “maliciously target” the phones of human rights activists, journalists and others.
  • After the American government blacklisted NSO Group, the company promised that Pegasus was only licensed to governments with good human rights records.
  • But in December it was announced that the iPhones of 11 American Embassy employees working in Uganda had been hacked using Pegasus spyware.
  • In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for NSO Group, who declined to provide their name, maintained the company only provides its software to legitimate intelligence agencies and to law enforcement agencies to fight criminals and terrorists.
  • In August it was revealed that Pegasus had been secretly installed on the smartphones of at least three dozen journalists, activists and business executives across the world, including close associates of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
  • The Israeli military has also been criticized for its human rights violations at home and abroad.
  • El Salvador has been criticized for intimidating and censoring local media.
  • El Salvador’s president, Mr. Bukele, has come under withering criticism from the United States government and rights groups for using the military to interfere with the legislature and to suspend Supreme Court judges and the attorney general.
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