meet America's grat Mideast ally, Saudi Arabia

1-28-19

  -Maan al-Jaraba, leader of the Saudi opposition group Harakat al-Karama (Movement for Dignity), spoke to online news outlet Lebanon Debate about the trap purportedly set up against him in September - only days before Khashoggi’s assassination.

Jaraba belongs to an influential Sunni family....  he has been an open advocate for the establishment of a Saudi constitution and a democratic electoral system....

  This Saudi dissident has come forward alleging that he was similarly lured into the Gulf country’s embassy in Lebanon - and would have also met a gruesome end had he not been accompanied by 3 armed bodyguards--with more not far away....

  “The embassy officials who welcomed him were surprised to see the bodyguards,” MEE’s source said.  “They thought the sheikh would come alone, though they themselves were heavily guarded.”   https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-dissident-beirut-believes-he-escaped-same-fate-khashoggi

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ISTANBUL — Faisal al Jarba fled his native Saudi Arabia late last year as the danger drew near — after his patron, a powerful Saudi prince, was arrested and after a friend died in suspicious circumstances while in government custody. 

  Jarba, a leading sheikh in a large tribe, traveled to the Jordanian capital, Amman, joining relatives there.  But that was not nearly far enough. Jordanian security officers surrounded his house one evening in early June and took him away for questioning, assuring his family he would be back soon.  Within days however he was driven to the border with Saudi Arabia and handed over to the Saudi authorities, according to two people familiar with the details of Jarba’s forced repatriation, which has not previously been reported.  There have been no charges filed against Jarba, 45, and in the five months since he was captured his family has received no proof that he is still alive, the people said....

  A spokeswoman for Jordan’s government did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Jarba’s case.  But Jordanian officials would later tell Jarba’s family that they had been powerless to stop his abduction, according to one of the people briefed on Jarba’s case.  “This is bigger than us,” the Jordanian officials reportedly said.   https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/saudi-campaign-to-abduct-and-silence-rivals-abroad-goes-back-decades/2018/11/04/ce6b801c-dc8a-11e8-8bac-bfe01fcdc3a6_story.html?utm_term=.7231f85a1ba2

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  The women in Australia say they live in constant fear of the Saudi authorities. Four Corners has uncovered evidence that officials from the Saudi Ministry of Interior are operating in Australia to try to coerce Saudi women seeking asylum to return home. vv“They’re saying ‘[we] want to talk to you, can we meet up in a coffee shop? We can get you what you want, what you like’,” Rawan said.  They’re like, nothing is going to happen to you if you go back, don’t worry we’ll try to talk with your male guardian there.” 

They hope the years spent planning their escapes will not be in vain and the Australian Government will allow them to stay.   “I live with this fear every day because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me if I went back to Saudi Arabia,” Nourah said.   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-04/escape-from-saudi-the-women-who-made-it-and-the-ones-who-dont/10763324

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2-3-19  -Taha al-Hajji, a Saudi refugee in Germany

  Hajji said his friends were being targeted in an arrest sweep in the aftermath of the January 2016 execution of the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 other people in a single day.  One day, Hajji said, police told him he was being summoned to a police station in his birthplace of Al-Hasa in eastern Saudi Arabia, a two-hour drive from his residence in Damam. "That was my first clue that I was going to be arrested. I'm used to going to police stations, as I am a lawyer, but they usually happen in the city of my work, Damam, not my birthplace," Hajji told CNN.

  He deleted his emails, packed his belongings and boarded a flight to Istanbul the next day. "I went to the airport leaving my fate to God. There were three possibilities: I could be arrested, I could be stopped from traveling or I could safely leave the country."  He arrived in Istanbul and traveled to Berlin 10 days later, he said.  After that, he began his life as a Saudi refugee.

"Going from being a lawyer to being a refugee was a substantial change. And it barely had a real justification.  There was no war.  It was just a question of asking for basic rights," said Hajji.  "I don't like to say that I am a refugee."  A week ago, Hajji's father died and he was unable to attend his funeral.  Saudi officials contacted him twice, once from the Berlin embassy and another time from inside the kingdom, asking him to return to the kingdom and promising safe passage.  Both times Hajji politely declined, he says.  "If I were to return to Saudi Arabia, an arrest would be unlikely.  But the situation isn't about that.  When one returns one is under a lot of political pressure and is consistently being blackmailed," said Hajji.  "Our trust in the state is non-existent."

Saudi Arabia has not responded to requests for comment on Hajji's case.  https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/02/middleeast/saudi-refugees-intl/index.html