Several international human rights groups have accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) of being involved in serious human rights violations, most recently was a report by f Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Reporters Without Borders stressed that MBS is currently detaining at least 27 journalists and bloggers and is suspected of having ordered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s October 2018 murder.
As a result of the waves of arrests of journalists that have taken place since MBS’s appointment as crown prince in 2017, RSF added MBS to its list of predators of press freedom.
MBS: Despot in the Desert
The Economist revealed some top secrets of the Crown prince’s childhood that led to his psychological disorder.
Home life was tricky for bin Salman, the paper said. His father, Salman, already had five sons with his first wife, an educated woman from an elite urban family. MBS’ mother, Salman’s third wife, was a tribeswoman. When MBS visited the palace where his father lived with his first wife, his older half-brothers mocked him as the “son of a Bedouin”. Later, his elder brothers and cousins were sent to universities in America and Britain. The Bedouin offspring of Prince Salman stayed in Riyadh to attend King Saud University.
“No one wanted to play football with Muhammad bin Salman. Sure, the boy was a member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family, but so were 15,000 other people. His classmates preferred the company of his cousins, who were higher up the assumed order of succession, a childhood acquaintance recalls.”
As for the isolated child who would one day become crown prince, a family friend recounts hearing him called “little Saddam”.
MBS: The De Facto Ruler
State-media outlets are keen not to show MBS as the de facto ruler and the first decision-maker in the Kingdom, and to present King Salman bin Abdulaziz as fully practising his administrative duties by himself despite his old age.
However, facts have proved another reality. MBS was appointed crown prince in June 2017 and wasted no time pursuing his audacious goals. A few hours after his appointment, 40 Saudi princes, business leaders, and senior officials were arrested. The 2017 crackdown also included dozens of scholars, preachers, and human rights defenders.
Kingdom of Fear
In more than once, dozens of rights groups and civil society organizations raised alarm bells over the serious human rights violations and abuses reported in Saudi Arabia, describing the Kingdom as “Kingdom of fear.” urge states to support joint action at the ongoing UN Human Rights Council session to hold Saudi Arabia international human rights obligations.
However, the Saudi authorities have failed to address a range of concerns raised in the series of joint statements. Since 2017, the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia has considerably worsened and rights organizations have documented a range of serious rights violations by the Saudi authorities.
These include ongoing arbitrary arrests and detention of people peacefully exercising their fundamental rights; arbitrary use of travel bans against activists who have been released or finished serving their prison terms and their families; deliberate medical and administrative neglect leading to deaths in detention; migrant workers and their families held in inhuman conditions in detention centres; and lengthy prison sentences of up to 20 years handed down to numerous peaceful critics after grossly unfair trials.
MBS’ Neom Project: A Case of Giga-Narcissism
Bloomberg has described the Saudi megaproject, Neom, as big on hubris and low on practicality.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s planned urban development makes even less sense than the kingdom’s earlier built-from-scratch city, Bloomberg added.
But if MBS builds it, will they come? Recent history allows for no optimism about his shining city in the dunes.
Neom Project’s Israel Link
The half-a-trillion-dollar initiative to build a megacity in Saudi Arabia will more than likely lead to Riyadh recognizing Israel and integrating Tel Aviv into the project.
Israel has always wanted relations with Saudi Arabia, though Riyadh has traditionally shirked away from this because it wanted to present itself as a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, made all the more symbolic by the Saudi monarchy’s custodianship over the Two Holy Mosques given the religious dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, news reports recently revealed that Israeli private sector companies intend to invest in the city, which will be built in an area relatively close to the Israeli border, while other reports say Russia and China, both involved in the project, are interested in bringing Israel into the project.
