Jamal Khashoggi and lessons on standing up to power

On Wednesday, I caught up with French human rights activist Agnès Callamard, who in 2018 was the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings and is now the secretary general of Amnesty International. She produced the report that found the Saudi government responsible for Jamal’s murder and pointedly called for an investigation into the role of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the country’s de facto ruler.

Just this week, MBS, as he is known, was named Saudi Arabia’s prime minister — a position that could give him “sovereign immunity” from a lawsuit brought against him in the United States by Jamal’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.

In our conversation, Agnes and I reflected on the past few years, and whether there is reason for hope. I got some surprising answers.

In Conversation

The following excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.

Karen Attiah: This time of year can be difficult — it reminds me of the horror of it all, just how hard so many of us pushed to get justice. And now we see MBS doing a rehab tour, his “fist bump” with [President] Biden — I don’t want to say our efforts didn’t matter, because of course they did, but it can feel like we didn’t get justice.

Agnès Callamard: Of course it matters. It always matters because you cannot let any murders go, or for them to be insufficiently investigated.

With Jamal’s killing, Turkey, me, your newspaper, Al Jazeera — the media did a lot of investigation that was super important. It points to the fact that where formal justice fails, all those can intervene. All of the media, all the individuals, the books — you’ve never seen that for one single journalist before. And, in fact, you haven’t seen it since.

That was a defining moment. We became very conscious of the fact that we do have power. We are not government, we are not police, but we have power to keep the issue on the agenda. We have power to reveal things. We have power to scare people off, you know?

Attiah: I want to make sure people understand: When you were the U.N. special rapporteur you were acting largely on your own accord.

Callamard: My choice to work on this case was not popular within the U.N. I did it because it’s important for the U.N. at least to have given the impression of being involved in what has turned out to be, in my view, a turning point for the protection of journalists.

Attiah: Jamal’s murder was also happening when there was a lot of skepticism about the “new direction” of Crown Prince MBS.

Callamard: It’s getting worse now, actually. I think the skepticism has unfortunately materialized. The last six months have been very tough for dissidents in Saudi Arabia. And that Biden visit [to Saudi Arabia in July] was bad, but how he did it was worse — the fist bump, the meetings. That’s what MBS wanted. He’s desperate for recognition, he wants to be someone the U.S. can’t avoid. That’s why he was made —

Attiah: — prime minister.

Callamard: The U.S. is going to produce something probably very problematic on head of state or sovereign immunity [in the civil case being brought by Jamal’s fiancee]. So, at that level, we’re stuck.

Attiah: I remember after the U.N. report came out, you came under a lot of intense scrutiny, abuse and attempts to discredit you and your work, especially from the Saudi side. How do you think about your safety? I believe there was even the time when one of the Saudi officials said he …

Callamard: … he had some people who could “take care of me.” I am not naive. But you know, I was thinking, am I such a threat? I did not think that I was frightening enough to … to be hurt or killed. I do know they hold their grudges very long. So that is something that is always in the back of my mind. There’s a lot of crap right now on social media against me and against others, and you cannot control how people are going to react.

Attiah: I think about that a lot, too.

Callamard: Karen, you are very public. You’re very present in the African American community, you know, in the fight against racism and all of that. And in my experience, some of the vilest stuff I got was from so-called cultural warriors.

Attiah: I’m glad you brought this up. I’ve said it before; it was scary to do what I was doing for Jamal’s case. But there [was] a sense that I had the whole media world, the journalism community, behind me.

Honestly, it feels more scary to speak out against racism and white supremacy here at home. A lot of the same kind of groups were super vocal when it was Saudi Arabia. The summer of 2020 put a lot of that into perspective. I mean, even in terms of seeing journalists who were trying to cover the protests [after the murder of George Floyd] who were being brutalized by our own “state security” agents. I saw a lot more equivocation from my colleagues in the media when it came to that sort of thing.

Callamard. Interesting reflection.

Attiah: Is there anything that you’d want people to ponder, reflect on, in the wake of Jamal’s case?

Callamard: How crucial it is to build networks.

And it’s like Jamal is not with us but he is everywhere, in the discussions about Saudi oil and money, democracy around the world. Jamal is, still, unavoidable.

Global Radar: Women fighting back against police

Women have been the center of anti-government protests in Iran ever since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody on Sept. 16. Her family said she had been arrested, then tortured and killed by Iran’s “morality police,” reportedly for the offense of wearing her headscarf in an “improper” manner. As well as taking to the streets, women have been cutting their hair and burning their headscarves in protest of Iran’s compulsory hijab law and the state’s control of their bodies. The protests in Tehran and dozens of other Iranian cities have been the largest in the country since 2009, capturing the world’s attention.

I stand in solidarity with women and their right to bodily autonomy, and their outrage over being abused and killed by state forces. But I can’t help but think about our situation here in the United States. I have written before about how the abuse or death of women, especially Black women, in police custody in this country has not inspired a “true national reckoning” — not the same level of in-the-streets protests for justice as we see elsewhere, say in India or Argentina. Will Americans ever have a #MahsaAmini moment where women take to the streets against police brutality against women? Would citizens of other countries stand up for solidarity with us if we were to take to the streets massively against our own police? I’d hope so.

Nevertheless, I realize that women-led challenges to policing are, in fact, going on here, just in a different way: American women, especially Black American women, have been at the forefront of trying to change how we imagine policing and safety. Black women have been the intellectual foremothers of the arguments to defund police and challenge the prison-industrial complex.

Watching all the U.S. cheerleading of women in Iran against abusive police forces, let’s also make sure we are willing to be just as brave when it comes to police brutality and control of our bodies at home.

Home Front: The kids will be all right

Speaking of standing up to power, America’s students have been making their voices heard in the churn of the increasing onslaughts against LGBTQ students. In Grapevine in North Texas, not far from where I grew up, high school students walked out of classes last month in protest of new policies that put restrictions on bathroom use and banned teachers from talking about gender and sexual orientation until after fifth grade. In Northern Virginia this week, hundreds of students walked out in protest of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s new rules targeting transgender students.

It’s a good thing that students are standing up for what they believe in. But it’s a tragedy that parents and politicians are using schools as political playgrounds — which they are free to do because students under the age of 18 have no say at the ballot box. As someone who has covered a few school board culture war skirmishes among adults, I think teenagers should have more of a voice in our society. Last year, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill to lower the national voting age to 16. Young people have been leading voices on issues such as climate change, gun safety and, now, efforts to protect inclusion within our education system. Sixteen-year-olds can work, drive and pay taxes. I say it would be a boost to our democracy if they were also able to vote.

What do you guys think?

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