HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT

More reformer, less revolutionary. The 59-year-old journalist has a career spanning nearly 30 years and is a respected critic of the Saudi regime. He studied at Indiana University before going on to report around the Middle East (interviewing Osama bin Laden several times) and becoming editor-in-chief of Saudi-backed Al-Arab News Channel and even an advisor to the royal family for a time. But after writing critically about the crackdown following crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power, he left Saudi Arabia in self-imposed exile for the U.S., where he became a regular commentator on Saudi affairs and foreign policy for The Washington Post.

Global outcry. The U.S. and the U.K. have strong ties with Saudi Arabia and have embraced the crown prince, but some suggest this has empowered the nation to get away with several questionable moves. The public outcry in the wake of Khashoggi’s disappearance will likely spur more diplomatic pressure on the Kingdom. Thus far, President Donald Trump has said he was concerned about what he’d heard, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the Saudis to investigate.

Keeping up appearances. Khashoggi’s disappearance, and Saudi Arabia's suspected role in it, could make it impossible to reconcile Mohammed bin Salman's image as a reformer and modernizer with such a harsh reality. Critics have already decried a wave of attacks on dissenting voices, including women who may be facing the death penalty for their activism. Khashoggi himself said government repression had worsened under the crown prince, who’d courted Western minds by lifting a ban on cinemas and allowing women to drive.

Protector of journalists? Turkey is in the unusual position of protesting the treatment of a foreign journalist on their soil — after having spent the last two years jailing journalists and shuttering independent media. As of December 2017, 73 journalists were in the country’s prisons — the most of any country in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. And in March, 24 more journalists were sent to jail for alleged links to a failed 2016 coup against President Erdogan.

WHAT TO READ

Saudi Arabia Wasn’t Always This Repressive. Now It’s Unbearable, by Jamal Khashoggi in The Washington Post.
“My friends and I living abroad feel helpless. We want our country to thrive … We are not opposed to our government and care deeply about Saudi Arabia. It is the only home we know or want. Yet we are the enemy.”

‘Our Hands Can Reach You’: Khashoggi Case Shakes Saudi Dissidents Abroad, by Ben Hubbard in The New York Times
“Even for a country that has long used fear and enticements to control dissent, the prospect that the state had killed a well-known dissident writer in a foreign country represented a startling escalation.”

WHAT TO WATCH