A day after the White House said Joe Biden would visit Saudi Arabia, a street sign in the name of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi was unveiled in front of the Saudi embassy in Washington.
Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed, dismembered and disposed of at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. US intelligence services believe the murder was ordered by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. He denies it.
Biden had called Riyadh a “pariah” over the murder and other human rights abuses, but with the average price of gas in the US now just above $5, and given other geopolitical priorities, he is now seeking to re-engage.
On Wednesday, the new Washington street sign was unveiled just after 1.14pm ET, the time Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate.
A statement was read on behalf of his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. She called on Biden to answer for his hypocrisy and to demand answers regarding the whereabouts of her fiance’s body.
The statement said: “Today, on this happy but very solemn occasion, I have two messages. My first message is to Jamal. Dear Jamal, the ideas and values you lost your life defending have been celebrated worldwide and continue to spread in the region and in the globe.
“My second message is to President Joe Biden. Mr Biden, you’ll soon visit Saudi Arabia as president, where you’ll meet with Jamal’s heartless executioner, dishonoring yourself and Jamal … Mr President, I beseech you not to lose your moral authority or overlook this heinous crime. You must uphold your vow to bring all the perpetrators of this brutal crime to justice.
“As disappointing as this is, if you have to put oil over principles and expediency over values, can you at least ask, ‘Where is Jamal’s body? Doesn’t he deserve a proper burial? And what happened to his killers?’
“Ask also about the hundreds of other political prisoners rotting in Saudi jails and the victims of brutal repression like Jamal, who have been suffering immensely under an oppressive regime.”
Also present at the unveiling was Khalid Al-Jabri, the son of a former Saudi intelligence chief whose siblings, Sarah and Omar, are imprisoned by the Saudi regime.
He called the unveiling of the sign for Jamal Khashoggi Way “a very significant symbolic gesture that would remind people of the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi that happened inside a diplomatic mission”.
Al-Jabri said that while he believes it is impossible for the US to completely sever ties with Saudi Arabia, there must be accountability for human rights abuses.
In an interview with the Guardian, Al-Jabri, said: “Biden made it clear that there won’t be any direct consequences for MBS [Prince Mohammed] for murdering Khashoggi. Unfortunately, that is the equivalent of a presidential pardon for murder, and MBS would perceive it as the Biden-issued license-to-kill more Khashoggis.
“All he has to do is do it without leaving fingerprints. But accountability matters. The nearest thing to accountability is to make sure that the repression that Jamal died exposing ceases to exist.
“The fact is there are American hostages in Saudi Arabia and you can’t abandon your citizens depending on which dictators are keeping them hostage.”
