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Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to the touch down in London on Sunday to pay his respects to the Queen has been condemned by Hatice Cengiz and different human rights defenders as a “stain” on the monarch’s reminiscence and an try by the Saudi crown prince to make use of mourning to “search legitimacy and normalisation”.
Cengiz, who was engaged to Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed and dismembered by Saudi brokers within the Istanbul consulate in 2018, mentioned she wished that Prince Mohammed could be arrested for homicide when he lands in London, however mentioned she feared that UK authorities would flip a blind eye to critical and credible allegations in opposition to the long run king.
A supply has informed the Guardian that Prince Mohammed will journey to the UK to ship his kingdom’s condolences to the royal household, although there was no affirmation or details about whether or not he would attend the funeral service at Westminster Abbey. CNN Arabic first reported the information on Thursday night time.
A declassified US intelligence report launched in 2021 discovered that the operation to kill or kidnap Khashoggi was authorised by Prince Mohammed. The report mentioned its evaluation was primarily based on the crown prince’s “management of choice making”, the “direct involvement of a key adviser and members of [the prince’s] protecting element”, and his “help for utilizing violent measures” to silence dissenters. The crown prince has denied he was personally concerned in planning the homicide.
“The Queen’s passing is a very unhappy event,” Cengiz mentioned. “The crown prince shouldn’t be allowed to be a part of this mourning and never be allowed to stain her reminiscence and use this time mourning to hunt legitimacy and normalisation.”
The information that the inheritor to the Saudi throne would make his first journey to London since 2018 was met with dismay amongst some Saudis in exile, together with Abdullah Alaoudh, a Washington-based Saudi dissident who’s the analysis director of Daybreak, a non-profit based by Khashoggi that promotes democracy within the Center East.
Alaoudh mentioned Prince Mohammed’s journey got here as Saudi Arabia was cracking down “harsher and tougher” on human rights defenders at residence, together with the current arrest of Salma al-Shehab, a 34-year-old PhD scholar at Leeds college who was arrested on a visit residence to the dominion and sentenced to 34 years in jail for utilizing Twitter.
“He’s getting emboldened to journey the world after the Khashoggi matter as the results of the devoted rehabilitation course of – whether or not they name it this or not – of western leaders,” Alaoudh mentioned, referring to visits to the dominion by Boris Johnson and Joe Biden.
The previous UK ambassador to Riyadh, Sir John Jenkins, mentioned of the Saudi management: “I feel they like Charles. Initially, he visited – and acquired round.
“His mom had visited too … and whereas she was vastly revered, all of it felt a bit distant. Charles was not distant. He visited the Gulf frequently, obtained princes privately and formally in London. And he paid consideration. Plus he’d made an effort to study some Arabic. And his early 90s speech on the Oxford Islamic centre, plus subsequent interventions, was admired and remembered.”
In its report, CNN Arabic mentioned Prince Mohammed wouldn’t attend the funeral. Alaoudh, whose father is a reformist cleric going through a dying sentence in Saudi Arabia, mentioned he believed the choice in all probability mirrored the crown prince’s fragile ego.
“He could be seated behind different highly effective figures,” Alaoudh mentioned. “However MBS desires full acknowledgment of his energy, his existence, of getting within the entrance row. He cares loads about these symbols and doesn’t wish to be humiliated.”
One other activist, Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the UK-based director of advocacy on the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, mentioned: “Authoritarian dictators mustn’t use the Queen’s dying as a chance to attempt to rehabilitate their picture whereas they escalate repressive campaigns of their nations.”
Protests have already been deliberate in opposition to the go to of Prince Mohammed, in addition to in opposition to visits by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain and leaders from the UAE. Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, mentioned: “The UK merely shouldn’t be welcoming dictators from states famend for his or her atrocious human rights information.
“Though the leaders of Russia and Syria have rightly not obtained invites to attend the Queen’s funeral, it sends a transparent double customary to then welcome infamous Gulf despots comparable to King Hamad and Mohammed bin Salman, who proceed to preside over appalling violations in opposition to those that dare to talk out in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.”
Agnes Callamard, the secretary normal of Amnesty Worldwide, who investigated the homicide of Khashoggi and whose life is alleged to have been threatened by a senior Saudi official, mentioned Prince Mohammed’s plan to pay his respects dropped at thoughts the homicide of the Washington Put up journalist, whose circle of relatives had been “denied the proper to bury Jamal with the dignity he deserved”. Saudi Arabia has denied it supposed to threaten Callamard.
The crown prince’s go to follows years of stories since Khashoggi’s homicide that critics of the dominion who reside overseas have confronted surveillance and threats by Saudi authorities, together with within the UK.
A British choose dominated final month {that a} case in opposition to the dominion introduced by a dissident satirist who was focused with spy ware may proceed, in a call that has been hailed as precedent-setting.
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