Saudi Arabia continues to target dissidents despite Khashoggi backlash
Dissident Omar Abdulaziz, a friend of the slain Washington
Post columnist, said Canadian authorities told him he was still being targeted
by Riyadh.
Less than two years after the brutal murder of journalist
Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi officials at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul,
the country continues to target dissidents living abroad.
That’s according to Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi national and
dissident based in Canada who told the Guardian, that Canadian authorities were
still targeting him.
“They (Saudis) want to do something, but I don’t know
whether it’s assassination, kidnapping, I don’t know – but something not OK for
sure,” Abdulaziz, a friend of the late Khashoggi, said
Neither the Canadian police or the Saudi government is
willing to comment on the alleged incident, but it has been confirmed by
Abdulaziz’s attorney.
The information comes just a year after the Palestinian
activist based in Norway, Iyad Baghdadi, revealed that the CIA had warned him
through Norwegian intelligence services that he was the target of an
unspecified threat emanating from the Saudis.
Baghdadi has been living in Norway since 2014 when he was
forced out of the UAE for his activism.
Both Baghdadi and Abdulaziz knew Khashoggi and the latter
was working with the slain Saudi dissident to establish a network of dissidents
in the kingdom, who did their activism online to counter Saudi propaganda
efforts.
Abdulaziz had previously had his phone targeted with
cyberattacks launched by the Saudis using Israeli software.
Western and Turkish intelligence officials believe the
dissident was killed on the orders of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman (MBS).
The prince has embarked on a ruthless crackdown on opponents
both inside and outside the country - a campaign that has seen religious
scholars, civil society activists, and even rival members of the Saudi royal
family thrown into jail.
The murder of Khashoggi sparked a massive diplomatic crisis
for Riyadh and resulted in the biggest strain in relations between the kingdom
and its Western allies in decades.
Governments were also under pressure from their publics to
halt arms sales and downgrade diplomatic relations with the state. In some
countries, such as Germany, arms sales were stopped in the aftermath of the
Khashoggi crisis.
The latest episode with Abdulaziz raises fears that the
Saudis and MBS have not learned the lessons of the Khashoggi affair and are
still looking to target activists.
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