Saudi Arabia’s Intensifying Despotism

The Saudi government has wrongfully detained another nine people, including two U.S. citizens, in the latest crackdown on dissent:

Brushing back pressure from Washington, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia escalated his crackdown on even the mildest forms of dissent with the arrests this week of at least nine intellectuals, journalists, activists and their family members, according to rights groups and a Saudi associate of the detainees.

Among those held are two dual Saudi-American citizens and two women — one of them pregnant, the groups said. Many of the detainees are suspected of having complained to Western journalists and rights groups about the treatment of imprisoned women’s activists, according to a Saudi national briefed on the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss confidential information.

The increasingly repressive Saudi government locks up anyone that utters a word of criticism or speaks to foreign media about their government. In this case, many of these critics have been detained for speaking out on behalf of the activists unjustly imprisoned in 2018 in a previous crackdown.
The Saudi government rounded up those activists almost a year ago, and it has been subjecting them to cruel and inhumane treatment ever since. The Guardian reported last week on new evidence that details the extent of the torture and abuse used against these activists, who were detained solely because of their criticism:

Political prisoners in Saudi Arabia are said to be suffering from malnutrition, cuts, bruises and burns, according to leaked medical reports that are understood to have been prepared for the country’s ruler, King Salman.

The reports seem to provide the first documented evidence from within the heart of the royal court that political prisoners are facing severe physical abuse, despite the government’s denials that men and women in custody are being tortured.

These people are peaceful activists, journalists, intellectuals, and writers. Their only offense is speaking out against the abuses of their government. Their detention is proof that Saudi despotism is only getting worse, and the U.S. encourages and enables this behavior when it refuses to hold the crown prince and his top officials accountable for these abuses. None of these detainees should be imprisoned, and all of them ought to be released immediately. The U.S. should be urgently seeking the release of all detainees with American citizenship, but we already know that the Trump administration isn’t going to do that.

The crown prince presumably assumes that he can continue suppressing his domestic critics without risking a backlash from the Trump administration, and he has every reason to think that. The administration has gone out of its way to cover for him and has done nothing to censure him for his many crimes. They have made clear that there is no crime so heinous that it will affect their support for the Saudi relationship and the crown prince. The intensifying repression under Mohammed bin Salman is one of the many reasons why the U.S. should be disentangling itself from the “new” Saudi Arabia. Since the Trump administration is so hopelessly subservient to the Saudis, it falls to Congress and human rights organizations here to call attention to these cases and to bring as much pressure to bear on Riyadh as they can to secure the release of political prisoners.