Image at issue, Saudis take human-rights steps

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia is taking modest steps to improve its human-rights record as it tries to navigate the coronavirus pandemic and the fallout from plunging oil prices.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the force behind Saudi Arabia’s sweeping changes and risky gambles, is looking at further steps that he hopes will improve the kingdom’s international image, which was damaged by the war in Yemen and by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of government agents in 2018.

In the past week alone, the kingdom has announced two changes to the law — banning flogging as a punishment and doing away with the death penalty for crimes committed by minors.

People familiar with the crown prince’s plans say more steps are likely to be announced within weeks and months.

The crown prince, while transforming life inside Saudi Arabia, has overseen a parallel crackdown on activists and perceived critics. Among those detained in his quest to solidify power are dual U.S.-Saudi citizens, women’s-rights activists, writers, moderate clerics and senior princes.

Saudi Arabia’s already strained relationship with Congress has worsened in the past several weeks.

Republicans have accused Saudi Arabia of exacerbating instability in the oil market. That came after the kingdom ramped up oil production and slashed prices in response to a breakdown in talks with Russia over production cuts. A new deal was later reached.

The volatility and price crash in oil, amid already weakened demand because of the coronavirus pandemic, pummeled U.S. shale producers, leading to layoffs in the industry.

Some Republican senators warned in late March that if Saudi Arabia does not change course, it risks losing American defense support and facing a variety of “levers of statecraft” such as investigations, sanctions and tariffs and other trade restrictions.

The crown prince may be hoping that continuous human-rights changes can revive what had largely been a warm relationship with the Trump administration, which has deployed U.S. troops to the kingdom to deter Iranian attacks.

Domestically, the crown prince’s efforts are aimed at modernizing the country and creating millions of jobs.

To do this, Mohammed has forged a friendship with President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. The crown prince also has courted foreign investors and used the country’s sovereign wealth fund to scoop up investments abroad.

That’s meant pivoting Saudi Arabia away from its ultraconservative Islamic roots, known as Wahhabism, which many in the country closely adhere to.

There are, however, hard limits on the kingdom’s changes, for which the crown prince has the blessing of his father, King Salman.

There’s also no indication that Saudi Arabia is curbing the crackdown on perceived critics.

The killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi critic and Washington Post columnist, in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by agents who worked for Mohammed cast a pall over the changes the 34-year-old crown prince had been lauded for. It also complicated his ability to court foreign investment needed to transform the Saudi economy.

Members of Congress voted unanimously to hold the crown prince responsible for Khashoggi’s death, despite Mohammed’s insistence that he had no knowledge of the operation.

Not long after, Congress voted to end U.S. assistance in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Trump vetoed the bill.

Since Khashoggi’s killing, few U.S. lawmakers have traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed.

It wasn’t always like this. The young royal had been highly praised in Washington before Khashoggi’s killing for decisions on ending the ban on women driving, allowing concerts and movie theaters and curtailing the powers of the religious police.

These moves allowed young Saudis to mix publicly without strict gender segregation rules. They gave Saudi women more freedom in how they wear the floor-length abaya in public. Women were also encouraged to play sports and work in greater numbers.

Last year, Saudi Arabia allowed women to travel abroad and obtain passports without the permission of male relatives. For years before this change, women of all ages had to rely on the whims of husbands, fathers, brothers or sometimes their own sons to travel. It led to women fleeing Saudi Arabia to escape abusive homes.

Progress on women’s rights, however, coincided with the arrest of more than a dozen Saudi women-right’s activists in mid-2018. Several remain imprisoned and face trial on crimes related to national security and their human-rights outreach.

Some have testified of being tortured and sexually assaulted during interrogations by masked men. At least one of the women attempted suicide.