‘It Shouldn’t Be A Crime To Speak Your Mind’ Khashoggi Told His Washington Post Editor, Karen Attiah

Written by Dana Sanchez

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Lawyer-activist Karen Fleshman returns to the GHOGH show to discuss why white folks call the cops on innocent Black folks and whether an ambiguous diversity concept helps empower BBQ Beckies and Permit Patties.

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Washington Post global opinions editor Karen Attiah first reached out to veteran Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi when she noticed that he was often quoted as a source in news reports about the Saudi crackdown on dissidents, but didn’t seem to be writing anything himself.

Attia asked Khashoggi to write a column for the Washington Post. His first piece was entitled “Saudi Arabia wasn’t always this repressive. Now it’s unbearable.” More columns followed. Khashoggi’s last column was written on Sept. 11, 2018.

His first Washington Post article was the first in six months since the Saudi government forbade Khashoggi to write, appear on TV or tweet his opinions after he was critical of then-U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, according to an article in Marie Claire.

A Saudi citizen, Khashoggi fled the country in 2017 and had been living in Virginia “in self-exile,” he said. On Oct. 2, Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to complete paperwork related to his divorce and disappeared.

Turkish officials told the U.S. that they have proof that Khashoggi was tortured, murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate, the Post reported.

FILE – In this Feb. 1, 2015, file photo, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a press conference in Manama, Bahrain. A pro-government Turkish newspaper on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018 published a gruesome recounting of the alleged slaying of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, just as America’s top diplomat arrived in the country for talks over the Washington Post columnist’s disappearance. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)

 

His disappearance set off accusations, criticism and political tension that may strain U.S.-Saudi relations and threaten billions of dollars in arms sales to the U.S.’s strong ally in the Middle East.

Trump appeared to side with the Saudis. He criticized the rapidly mounting global condemnation of Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi, warning against a rush to judgment and echoing the Saudis’ request for patience, Arab News reported.

Trump compared the case to allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing. “I think we have to find out what happened first,” Trump said. “Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent. I don’t like that.”

Enemy of the people

In what looked like a Kavanaugh victory lap over his defeated critics and opponents in the media and politics, Trump held multiple press conferences On Oct. 11, Business Insider reported. He has famously tweeted that the media are “the enemy of the people,” but on Oct. 11, he was friendly to the press.

Khashoggi lived in the U.S. prior to 2017. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Indiana State University in 1982, served as the press aide to the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, D.C. in 2006, and had applied for permanent residency, according to Marie Claire:

In his first column for The Post, he said he feared arrest if he returned home, and felt he had no choice but to raise his voice, writing, ‘to do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot.’ The article was an instant hit. “Essentially, that piece he did for us, it was like his ‘coming out’ piece,’ Attiah says. “Once we hit ‘publish,’ within minutes, we saw our traffic spike and I think we were all like, Whoa, alright, this is a big deal.”

Holding a picture of missing Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, Tawakkol Karman, of Yemen the Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2011, talks to members of the media near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, Friday, Oct. 5, 2018. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old veteran journalist who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. since Prince Mohammed’s rise to power, disappeared Oct. 2 while on a visit to the consulate to get paperwork done to be married to his Turkish fiancée. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Writing for The Washington Post likely made Khashoggi a target, Attiah told Marie Claire. “’He told me the royal family were like, ‘Oh, you can write for whoever you want, but why does it have to The Post?” she said. ‘But that was exactly what attracted Khashoggi to the newspaper. ‘He knew (Saudi King) Mohammed Bin Salman reads The Post.'”

Khashoggi didn’t talk much about the threats he faced, Attiah said, but he understood the risks. She said she heard about trolls who called him a traitor and people who wanted him to stop writing. He never told her about any death threats, she said. Sometimes before publishing his work, Attiah said she asked him if he was sure.

He always said yes, she said: “He was like, ‘I want to speak my mind—it shouldn’t be a crime in this world to speak your mind.’ He could have chosen another avenue, he could have stayed silent, he could have said, ‘I’ll work to build my own blog or channel’ or gone somewhere else, but he chose The Washington Post and he agreed to work with me.”
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