If you want proof Saudi Arabia is trying to improve its reputation, visit the website of the Saudi Tourism Authority. There you will find the Q&A section has recently been updated to state that LGBTQ visitors to the country are welcome. This from a country that executed five men for same-sex relationships just four years ago. The hubris is astonishing. And yet to directly challenge those contradictions isn’t easy, something John Lubbock, Daisy Steinhardt and Max Colbert recently learned.
As reported by the Guardian on Tuesday, the journalists had co-written an article for Vice World News, which looked at how LGBTQ Saudis face threats from their families and state authorities. It was commissioned after Vice signed a partnership deal with the MBC Group, a media company controlled by the Saudi government. The article’s publication was first delayed and eventually spiked. The reason given? To protect staff at Vice’s offices in Riyadh.
