On the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi
We cannot yet be certain what has happened to missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi Crown prince is still denying knowledge of his fate, but unless like Arkady Babchenko he turns up alive there will continue to be grave concern about the implications of his disappearance.
To say that there are huge ironies both in this case and in how it has been reported is an understatement. Sadly, there are hundreds of journalists who get arrested, kidnapped or murdered around the world every year.
Khashoggi has probably had more publicity than all the other journalists who have been the victims of repression in the past year put together, and yet very few if any of them will have had less in common with the stereotype of the brave anti-establishment gadfly trying to hold a regime to account in the name of open government or democracy, which is how he is misleadingly being presented.
(This does not, of course, justify, excuse or mitigate in any way whatsoever abducting, torturing or murdering him if that is indeed what has happened.)
The host regime complaining vigorously through private press briefings about the apparent murder on their soil, that of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has itself a terrible record both on human rights in general and press freedom, with scores of journalists among the thousands of people it has locked up on dubious charges, although to be fair I am not aware that there have been any credible allegations against the Turkish regime of murdering any of those people.
Khashoggi was himself a former member of the Saudi establishment, a supporter of the Muslim brotherhood, who had once been a friend of Osama Bin Laden prior to the 9/11 attacks (he disassociated himself from Bin Laden after them) and had voiced only the mildest criticisms of the Saudi regime. He opposed regime change and often said that he believed in the Saudi system but just wanted to reform it.
Again, none of that would excuse abducting, torturing or murdering him either.
Part of the reason he walked willingly into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul may be that Khashoggi did not even consider himself to be a dissident. Ironically one thing he did have in common with the West is the belief that sometimes your best friends will offer advice you don't want to hear and that there can be a distinction between critics and enemies. He described his criticisms of the Saudi regime as nasiha or friendly counsel.
If the evidence confirms - and we are not yet at that point - that the Saudi regime did kill Jamal Khashoggi, either deliberately or because he died while being tortured, this puts the West in a quandary.
It is impossible in the real world for nations like Britain who trade and have interests around the world not to have dealings with regimes which are guilty of corruption or of vile human rights abuses.
However, the state-sponsored abduction and murder of a journalist in that state's embassy to a foreign power would be an egregious crime which undermines the principles which supports international diplomacy. There would have to be some comeback for that.
If strong evidence emerges that the Saudi regime is guilty of murder, then failure to make any response after the diplomatic and economic sanctions which were - rightly in my opinion - imposed on Russia following the Salisbury attack would risk making the West look like hypocrites.
I am not suggesting we go to war with Saudi Arabia any more than I wanted to start World War III following Salisbury, or that we do anything else which will further destabilise the Middle East, but some form of proportionate diplomatic or economic sanctions would be necessary.
To say that there are huge ironies both in this case and in how it has been reported is an understatement. Sadly, there are hundreds of journalists who get arrested, kidnapped or murdered around the world every year.
Khashoggi has probably had more publicity than all the other journalists who have been the victims of repression in the past year put together, and yet very few if any of them will have had less in common with the stereotype of the brave anti-establishment gadfly trying to hold a regime to account in the name of open government or democracy, which is how he is misleadingly being presented.
(This does not, of course, justify, excuse or mitigate in any way whatsoever abducting, torturing or murdering him if that is indeed what has happened.)
The host regime complaining vigorously through private press briefings about the apparent murder on their soil, that of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has itself a terrible record both on human rights in general and press freedom, with scores of journalists among the thousands of people it has locked up on dubious charges, although to be fair I am not aware that there have been any credible allegations against the Turkish regime of murdering any of those people.
Khashoggi was himself a former member of the Saudi establishment, a supporter of the Muslim brotherhood, who had once been a friend of Osama Bin Laden prior to the 9/11 attacks (he disassociated himself from Bin Laden after them) and had voiced only the mildest criticisms of the Saudi regime. He opposed regime change and often said that he believed in the Saudi system but just wanted to reform it.
Again, none of that would excuse abducting, torturing or murdering him either.
Part of the reason he walked willingly into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul may be that Khashoggi did not even consider himself to be a dissident. Ironically one thing he did have in common with the West is the belief that sometimes your best friends will offer advice you don't want to hear and that there can be a distinction between critics and enemies. He described his criticisms of the Saudi regime as nasiha or friendly counsel.
If the evidence confirms - and we are not yet at that point - that the Saudi regime did kill Jamal Khashoggi, either deliberately or because he died while being tortured, this puts the West in a quandary.
It is impossible in the real world for nations like Britain who trade and have interests around the world not to have dealings with regimes which are guilty of corruption or of vile human rights abuses.
However, the state-sponsored abduction and murder of a journalist in that state's embassy to a foreign power would be an egregious crime which undermines the principles which supports international diplomacy. There would have to be some comeback for that.
If strong evidence emerges that the Saudi regime is guilty of murder, then failure to make any response after the diplomatic and economic sanctions which were - rightly in my opinion - imposed on Russia following the Salisbury attack would risk making the West look like hypocrites.
I am not suggesting we go to war with Saudi Arabia any more than I wanted to start World War III following Salisbury, or that we do anything else which will further destabilise the Middle East, but some form of proportionate diplomatic or economic sanctions would be necessary.
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