Saudi Arabia: arrests of dissidents and torture allegations continue

[Eugene]

Related: The High Cost of Change (Human Rights Watch)

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Source: The Guardian

Saudi Arabia: arrests of dissidents and torture allegations continue

Relaxation of social laws has belied repression since murder of Jamal Khashoggi, says report

Michael Safi
@safimichael
Mon 4 Nov 2019 12.28 GMT
Last modified on Mon 4 Nov 2019 14.17 GMT

Activists, clerics and other perceived critics of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, continue to be arbitrarily detained more than a year after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a report has said.

Bin Salman has overseen the relaxing of a number of the kingdom’s restrictive social laws since assuming a leadership position in the Saudi government four years ago, most recently allowing women over 21 to obtain passports and travel abroad without the permission of a male guardian.

But these reforms have belied a “darker reality”, according to a report released on Monday by Human Rights Watch, including the mass arrests of women’s rights activists, a number of whom have allegedly been sexually assaulted and suffered torture including whipping and electric shocks.

Saudi government agencies have denied mistreatment of female activists.

About 20 people have been arbitrarily detained this year and there have been 30 detentions since the murder in October last year of Khashoggi, a journalist, in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, HRW said.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/04/saudi-arabia-mass-arrests-of-dissidents-and-torture-allegations-continue

[pscot]

1. There's a rumor gaining traction on twitter

to the effect that Kushner gave the Saudis a green light to move on Jamal Khashoggi and that the Turks have recordings documenting the fact. This allegedly accounts for Trump giving up the Kurds; the Turks were threatening to release the story.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[drelmo]

2. maybe more than a rumor - Kushner-khashoggi

The UK Daily Mail reports that one of the interviewed whistle blowers for the
impeachment proceedings revealed that Kushner ok-ed MBS to arrest Khashoggi.
That's how we know anything about this I believe. The article said the impeachment
assembly (not sure how to reference them) would be looking into it.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. rump and kushner knew of and ok'd the DISMEMBERMENT OF A JOURNALIST

AND every single rump supporter will be OK with this

Will we THEN realize what we are UP AGAINST