Saudi Arabia’s repression of political dissidents undermines “the future of the U.S.-Saudi relationship,” a bloc of Democratic senators warned the oil-rich monarchy.
“We will continue to closely watch Saudi action — or inaction — on human rights as Congress considers measures related to the Middle East,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and eight colleagues wrote in a Tuesday letter to King Salman.
The lawmakers also requested “the immediate and unconditional release” of several political prisoners, including one American citizen. They took a no-nonsense tone with the aging monarch, but identified specific steps he could take to defuse the tensions caused by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s aggressive foreign policy.
“It’s clear the status quo cannot continue: significant reforms in Saudi Arabia are critical now more than ever,” they wrote. “Accordingly, releasing political prisoners in Saudi Arabia would help demonstrate belated yet welcome respect for human rights and help repair the damaged U.S.-Saudi relationship.”
The lawmakers put special emphasis on the case of Walid Fitaihi, a U.S.-Saudi dual citizen who founded a hospital in Jeddah and hosted a popular TV show in the country. He was detained in 2017 alongside roughly 200 prominent Saudis, a group that included more than a dozen members of the royal family, at the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton. Fitaihi has been tortured in Saudi custody, the doctor’s son told lawmakers recently, and he has been permitted only very limited contact with his family.
“We will not tolerate this treatment of an American citizen and implore you to act swiftly to resolve the case of Dr. Fitaihi,” the senators wrote.
The Ritz-Carlton crackdown was billed as an anti-corruption measure, but perceived internationally as an example of Crown Prince Mohammed punishing internal critics and sidelining potential rivals. That operation foreshadowed a series of international incidents centered on the crown prince. Those controversies culminated in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based dissident who was allegedly dismembered in October by the crown prince’s associates after entering a diplomatic facility in Turkey.
The Khashoggi execution compounded the congressional frustration over the tactics of a Saudi-led coalition that has intervened in Yemen’s civil war and adopted tactics that threaten millions of civilians with starvation, according to U.S. and United Nations officials.
“The brutality of the Khashoggi killing and Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, as well as the continued detention of political prisoners threaten not only Saudi Arabia’s regional role but also the future of the U.S.-Saudi relationship,” Durbin wrote.
He was joined by several members of the key national security committees, the panels that oversee the Defense Department, the State Department, and the intelligence community. Two aspirants for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, joined the effort.
They sent their letter one day after a report that King Salman has curtailed some of the authority wielded by his son, who has dominated regional politics since he came to power in 2017. The lawmakers encouraged the monarch to assert himself by invoking his authority “as King of Saudi Arabia” to issue pardons to human rights activists who have been arrested and abused.
“Our shared interests must be underscored by support for basic values and freedoms, as anything else will not be sustainable,” they wrote.
