Saudi Bloggers Invite the Vengeance of the Powerful MbS ... Asylum Abroad? There is no Escape

Omar Abdulaziz  Washington Post/Getty Images

"[The Canadian authorities -- RCMP] received some information regarding my situation that I might be a potential target."

"MbS and his group or – I don’t know – his team, they want to harm me. They want to do something, but I don’t know whether it’s assassination, kidnapping, I don’t know – but something not OK for sure."

"They [RCMP] asked me, ‘What do you think about it?’ I said, ‘I’m happy'."

"I feel that I’m doing something. You know, if you’re not doing anything that bothers MbS, that means you’re not working very well."

"I don’t want to tell you that I’m scared. I’m not, honestly. But you have to take some precautions to be ready."

"[Saudis at one time commented freely about Saudi Arabia on Twitter]; That all changed with the rise of MbS. Saudi Twitter gradually morphed into a propaganda platform, with the government deploying trolls and pressuring influencers to amplify its messages. More than 30 influencers told me that the Saudi government blackmailed them with material obtained by hacking their phones. They were given two options: Tweet propaganda or have your private content, including pictures, released on Twitter." 

Omar Abdulaziz, Saudi blogger, activist, self-exiled in Canada

 

"[The Official Opposition in Parliament want to see the governing Liberals create a] robust plan to counter foreign influence operations on Canadian soil."

"The government's response to Canadians facing intimidation and harassment by foreign agents is wholly inadequate." 

Michael Chong, Conservative foreign affairs critic

 

"It is completely unacceptable and we will never tolerate foreign actors threatening Canada's national security or the safety of our citizens and residents."

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair

 

"Now that the U.S. has clearly signalled that it will not fundamentally change the relationship with Saudi Arabia, it becomes much more difficult and costly for American allies in the west to change their relationship with Saudi Arabia."

Thomas Juneau, professor, faculty of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa

 

YouTuber Omar Abdulaziz, now a Montrealer, has been under pressure by agents of Saudi Arabia trying to persuade him to return to the Kingdom. Once he returns, he well knows, he will be subject to additional pressure to surrender his opposition to the ruling House of Saud, and to become part of the Kingdom's stable of electronic propagandists under the imprimatur of Crowns Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Alternately, he could very well and more likely suffer the fate that awaited Raif Badawi, another blogger and activist who has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for the past eight years.

 

Ensaf Haidar, Raif Badawi's wife has been actively engaged for the period her husband has been incarcerated, in approaching governments and human rights groups for their support in applying pressure to Saudi Arabia to release her husband. When Raif Badawi was originally taken into custody in 2012, charged with insulting Islam and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, he was also sentenced to receive 1000 lashes as additional punishment. He was subjected to an initial 50 lashes which almost killed the frail young man.

 

An international outcry persuaded the Saudis to settle for the 50 lashes for the time being. Raif Badawi's ten-year sentence is set to soon expire. But his wife Ensaf Haidar has become an irritating thorn in Mohammed bin Salman's side, and signs have emerged that she is set to be 'investigated' by the Saudi legal system for besmirching the reputation of the Kingdom. Underlying that threat is another, that a new charge is being leveled at Mr. Badawi which would most certainly extend his prison stay into the future.

Ensaf Haidar, wife of imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi, holds a poster with his photo at a rally for his freedom on Jan. 13, 2015, in Montreal. Photo by Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press/File

Like Russia and Iran, Saudi Arabia has long been known to seek out its nationals abroad who have taken to criticizing the Kingdom, to threaten or silence them. The murder and dismemberment of Saudi Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul represents the most high-profile of the Saudi intelligence group's effort to silence a critic; a hit that went sideways with a resulting gasp of horror at the extreme lengths chosen to silence a critic through a grotesquely ill-conceived 'disappearance'.

 

Since the 2017 palace coup when King Salman's son Mohammed persuaded his father to anoint him successor to the Saudi throne rather than his uncle, when Mohammed bin Salman then had many members of the royal family placed under house arrest, thus removing any challenges to his claim to the throne in a reorganized succession, the Kingdom has seen various types of turmoil, internal and external. MbS has proceeded slowly to loosen Saudi laws restricting the human rights of Saudi women. While at the same time arresting women who publicly agitate for their human rights.

 

Mohammed bin Salman, Getty Images

He also formed a coalition with other Sunni Arab states to become involved in an Iranian proxy civil war in Yemen, arming and training Houthi rebels for the greater goal of consolidating the influence and power of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a wider arc of Shi'ite influence encircling the majority Arab Sunni states. The mass arrest of senior Saudis, repression of dissidents and the disappearance of those close to dissidents sheltering abroad have all marked the Kingdom's MbS launch into notoriety.

"We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi." 

"While the United States remains invested in its relationship with Saudi Arabia, President [Joe] Biden has made clear that partnership must reflect U.S. values." 

"To that end, we have made absolutely clear that extraterritorial threats and assaults by Saudi Arabia against activists, dissidents and journalists must end. They will not be tolerated by the United States."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken

Another Saudi blogger living in Montreal where he had sought asylum began to block fellow activists on social media. Other Saudi dissidents in Canada posted that Ahmed Alharby had informed them of a visit he made to the Saudi embassy in Ottawa where he had undergone interrogation. A new Twitter account appeared in mid-February under Alharby, featuring the image of Mohammed bin Salman, making ti clear that Alharby had returned to Saudi Arabia and was no longer a critic, but a stalwart fan of MbS. 

Saudi women have to wear the abaya in public by law   Getty Images

Saudi Saad Aljabri, formerly a high-ranking intelligence officer, linked closely to the deposed uncle of Mohammed bin Salman, has been harassed at his home in exile in Toronto, with Saudi agents trying to persuade him to return to his country of birth. Two of his adult children living in Saudi Arabia have been 'disappeared' in an apparent effort to persuade their father to return to Saudi Arabia. Aljabri has launched a lawsuit against Mohammed bin Salman in the United States charging him with dispatching a hit squad to dispose of him, but the squad was denied entry to Canada by suspicious Canada Border agents.

Reporters Without Borders has filed legal documents in Germany for an investigation to be launched into alleged crimes against humanity in the repression of journalists by Mohammed bin Salman. Clearly, he has failed to positively impress governments and various agencies around the world. "The official opening of a criminal investigation in Germany into the crimes against humanity in Saudi Arabia would be a world first", observed German executive director of Reporters Without Borders, Christian Mihr.

A cyclist passes as activists demonstrate outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy against the recent Saudi court ruling that upheld a previous verdict of ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for Saudi blogger Raif Badawi on June 11, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images