Emmanuel Macron receives the Saudi crown prince: indignation from human rights defenders

Indignant. She confessed to feeling like the girlfriend of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, dismembered at the Riyadh consulate in Istanbul in 2018 when he learned of the meeting this Thursday in France. between Emmanuel Macron and Muhammad bin Salmanthe crown prince of Saudi Arabia, identified as the intellectual perpetrator of the murder.

The French president receives the crown prince on Thursday despite criticism from human rights defenders for his international “rehabilitation” after the murder of journalist Khashoggi.

“I’m shocked and indignant which Emmanuel Macron receives with all honors the executioner of my fiance, “Hatice Cengiz condemned in a message to the media.

The return of Bin Salman

After a tepid period of international ostracism for Khashoggi’s murder, Bin Salman shakes hands again of world leaders. He did it only with Joe Biden, who had to go to the prince’s kingdom to ask for more oil production after promising, during the election campaign, that he would reduce Saudi Arabia to a “pariah” state.

Additionally, last year the Biden administration released an intelligence assessment that Prince Mohamed “approved” the operation that led to Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment in 2018.

With the war in Ukraine ravaging the price of fuel and energy, Bin Salman holds the key to lowering the price of oil and helping to reduce global inflation. With that ace up his sleeve, he embarked on his first European tour since Khashoggi’s death.

“MBS’s visit (as it is called) to France, or Joe Biden’s to Saudi Arabia, It doesn’t change the fact that he’s a killerAgnès Callamard, the former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, who investigated the murder, told AFP.

Complaint to the French court

Several NGOs, including Democracy for the Arab world now (DAWN) created by Khashoggi, unveiled this Thursday a complaint in Paris against Bin Salman for ccomplicity in torture and forced disappearances, announced these organizations and their French lawyer.

The journalist, Washington Post reporter and critic of Saudi power, was killed by Saudi agents at the country’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered with a saw.

The Saudi prince, who started his tour in Greece, arrived in Paris on Wednesday evening, where he was received by the Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire.

Dinner at the Elysée

Emmanuel Macron, who is visiting Africa, plans to do so a “business dinner” this Thursday with Bin Salman at 3:30 pm Argentine time, in the Elysée, according to a statement by the presidency.

The meeting will serve take care of energy supply and control of Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia’s biggest regional rival.

double rod

Callamard reported a “double meter” with the welcome to the Saudis, since “many” of the world leaders “have expressed their condemnation” for the assassination and “have pledged not to integrate MBS into the international community”.

Despite Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights violations, many Western powers see Riyadh as an essential partner for energy, defense and yours strong opposition to Iran.

“Apparently MBS can rely on Emmanuel Macron for rehabilitate it on the international stage despite the atrocious death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the incessant repression by the Saudi authorities against all criticism, war crimes in Yemen “, Bénédicte Jeannerod, of the NGO Human Rights Watch, complained on Twitter.

Macron met with Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia in December 2021 and, in recent days, he also received two allied leaders of Saudi Arabia in Paris, the Egyptian Abdul Fatah al Sisi and Mohamed bin Zayed, from the United Arab Emirates.

The red carpet stretched for these two leaders defrauded human rights activists, but the French president then traveled to Guinea-Bissau, Cameroon and Benin, three African countries that are not seen as exemplary democracies.

“The war in Ukraine has once again put the energy producing countries in the center of the boardand they are taking advantage of it, “said Camille Lons, a researcher at the British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Western countries have sought since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in February that Saudi Arabia, first exporter of crude oil, increase its production to facilitate markets and limit inflation.

But Riyadh resists the pressure, evoking commitments made with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC +), jointly led by Saudi Arabia and Russia.

“This gives them a political influence which they use to reaffirm their importance on the international stage,” added Lons, for whom, in this context of rising prices, “human rights in Saudi Arabia are no longer the priority of the country. agenda”. .

With information from AFP

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