On 2 October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist and columnist for the Washington Post, entered the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. He intended to marry his Turkish fiancée, and had come to collect papers confirming his divorce from his first wife. Instead, a hit team of 15 Saudis, who had arrived in the country earlier that day, were waiting for him. Khashoggi never left the consulate. Istanbul’s chief prosecutor said that the journalist had been chopped to pieces using a bone saw. An advisor to the Turkish president told the media that Khashoggi’s body had been dissolved in acid. The US Central Intelligence Agency concluded that the assassination had been ordered by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman.
Later that month, I attended a hostile-environment training programme for journalists reporting from conflict-ridden West Asia and North Africa. My fellow participants were Arabs, from Kuwait, Tunisia, Iraq and Yemen. We were taught how to report on the constant bloodshed in the region, with an emphasis on life-saving skills.
“What do you do,” our instructor asked, “if you or your colleague has been severely injured in the limbs?”
“Tourniquet,” a Kuwaiti journalist sitting next to me quickly responded. She was right, even though she had never undergone first-aid training. However, having covered the region, especially the war in Yemen, for years, she was aware of the basics. “And what do we do if a government decides to chop us into pieces?” she asked.
She had struck a nerve. It was not that the attendees were not interested in what was being taught, but they were all wondering whether there was a protocol to save them from state-sponsored brutality. Arab journalists are used to the inherent dangers of reporting from this part of the world, but Khashoggi’s murder crossed a line—the impunity behind the act had left them enraged. However, in order to speak freely in the fraught environment in which they work, they requested anonymity, and that I not reveal where the training programme was held.
A Tunisian participant was particularly interested in learning what to do if abducted during a reporting trip. She showed admirable tenacity during a training exercise in which a group of masked men held six of us hostage—she was the first to break out of the zip-tie around her wrists, and helped others who were struggling. During the lunch break, she said: “An Arab journalist is dismembered with a bone saw, and not one Arab country takes on Riyadh. Why? Now they can do it too.” It was a sentiment echoed by other attendees—that the ease with which bin Salman had been cleared of involvement in the murder would send a message to other autocrats in the region that they too could get away with killing prominent dissidents.
Just a day before, the Arab League had endorsed the Saudi investigation into the murder. The Saudi investigators called the killing a “rogue” act, indicting 11 people but skirting questions about bin Salman’s involvement, despite audio recordings implicating him—accessed by the media in Turkey and the United States. The Arab League’s statement steered clear of any insinuation towards the crown prince.
The Kuwaiti journalist used to work for a Saudi news channel. She told me that when bin Salman was named heir to the throne and began arresting Saudi billionaires—some of whom owned media houses—the atmosphere in the newsrooms changed drastically. There was worry that editorial control, for all practical purposes, lay with the crown prince. “Suddenly, we were not allowed to bring in Yemeni guests,” she said. “Then we got a letter, an email that ‘Please do not say anything political at this time.’” She quit when she was asked to refrain from organising a show about the arrest of women’s-rights activists, soon after Saudi Arabia allowed women to drive. “I was working with a feminist show, and we could not address the elephant in the room,” she said.
She told me that she found it impossible to see bin Salman as the reformer he had been advertised to be. A year before, a much-publicised campaign had portrayed the 33-year-old crown prince as the new face of the Saudi monarchy. He promised to upend the old social order. He opened cinemas, allowed concerts and other public exhibitions, and revealed his vision for a modern, cosmopolitan Saudi Arabia that had diversified its economy to reduce its dependence on oil. The world’s press hailed him as the only hope for a country plagued with medieval beliefs.
The crown prince had also become the lynchpin of the US president Donald Trump’s policy for the region, to take down Iran and ensure a pro-Israel settlement to its conflict with Palestine. His government was also a major importer of US-made weapons, to be used in its escalating war in Yemen. Despite the mounting evidence against bin Salman, Trump steadfastly stood by him.
A few days after the CIA concluded that bin Salman had authorised the killing, Trump finally broke his silence on the issue. “It could very well be that the crown prince had knowledge of this tragic event—maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” he said. On 19 June, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings released a report based on extensive intelligence inputs that concluded there were enough grounds to justify the investigation of senior Saudi officials, including the crown prince, for their role in the assassination and the destruction of evidence. During an interview four days later, Trump deflected a question about whether he would follow the report’s recommendation for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to carry out a further probe, since he considered the matter thoroughly investigated.
Such indulgence of Saudi excesses, while blatant, was in keeping with the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia, which has weathered many storms. However, the US government had continued to claim for itself a reputation as an upholder of human rights. Trump signalled a reorientation of US foreign policy, eschewing admonition over human-rights violations in favour of preserving trade and security ties. “I’m not like a fool that says, ‘We don’t want to do business with them,’” he said during the interview. “And by the way, if they don’t do business with us, you know what they do? They’ll do business with the Russians, or with the Chinese.”
For my fellow attendees, Trump’s transactional worldview was a scary proposition. It was not just him—despite sanctions and public disavowals, the ties of the Western world with the monarchy have largely remained intact.
The Kuwaiti journalist told me that Khashoggi’s silencing had had a profound impact on her. She could no longer continue to report fearlessly, she said. “It means if I want to reveal the truth about what the Saudi coalition in Yemen is doing, how they are depriving even humanitarian aid and blocking the ports, stopping the flow of medicine, I will be targeted.”
Towards the end of our training, as we practised cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on dummies, a journalist from Yemen offered an alternative view. The outrage, he said, should not just be over Khashoggi. He was astounded at the attention paid to the death of a single journalist, when compared to the response to the human-rights disaster unfolding in his country. “Khashoggi shouldn’t have been killed,” he told me, “but what’s that in the face of thousands dying in Yemen? Such outrage on his murder by the international press, but they ignored the war in Yemen. No one cares about the starving, the dead of Yemen.”