Khashoggi case a test for despots everywhere

The killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi has become a test case for despots everywhere. Can they get away with interrogating, kidnapping and even assassinating their critics in other countries?

Khashoggi, a United States resident and contributor to the Washington Post, died at the hands of Saudi operatives at their country’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, almost three weeks ago.

The Saudi regime long insisted Khashoggi left the consulate alive. King Salman and his powerful crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, denied any knowledge of the journalist’s fate.

Early Saturday, Riyadh suddenly changed its story, announcing that Khashoggi had died in the consulate after all, as the result of a “quarrel” that escalated into a brawl.

Are we really meant to believe the team of 15 Saudi operatives sent to ambush Khashoggi, reportedly including four members of Prince Mohammad’s personal security detail and an autopsy expert equipped with a bone saw, accidentally got into a fatal fistfight with a 59-year-old columnist? Although U.S. President Donald Trump initially threatened “severe consequences” for Khashoggi’s murder, he has since wavered between characterizing the Saudi whitewash as credible and expressing doubts. There is more at stake in this crisis than accountability for a heinous murder. Press freedoms and the safety

of journalists are under threat in many countries, but state-directed assassination of a high-profile columnist who resides in another country represents a threat to every journalist, everywhere.

And it’s not just journalists being targeted. Authoritarian regimes are brazenly venturing abroad to threaten, kidnap, or even kill their critics and whistleblowers.

Many of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s critics have disappeared or perished abroad under suspicious circumstances. The poisoning of Russian exspy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England earlier this year (and the death of a British citizen who accidentally came into contact with the poison) was likely the most recent example of Putin’s extraterritorial score-settling. British authorities have charged two men with the attack, alleging both are active Russian intelligence agents, a conclusion also reached by independent investigators. Chinese security agents have also conducted a number of alleged kidnappings abroad. In 2015, five Hong Kongbased booksellers and publishers disappeared and later reappeared in mainland Chinese prisons.

One of them, Gui Minhai, was apparently snatched from his apartment in Thailand. In another case, democracy campaigner Li Xin disappeared from a train in Thailand and turned up in a Chinese jail months later, claiming to have returned “voluntarily.” Other Chinese dissidents have reportedly been seized in Myanmar (Burma) and Vietnam. Turkey, the affronted party in the Khashoggi case, has conducted its own aggressive campaign to silence suspected opponents at home and abroad, including journalists. Since a failed 2016 coup against his government, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought, in particular, to repatriate sup-

porters of a former political rival whom he accuses of orchestrating the coup.

Erdogan’s deputy prime minister has publicly bragged that Turkish intelligence services have seized at least 80 Turkish nationals from multiple countries. In July, masked men reportedly abducted a Turkish educator in Mongolia and took her to a private airplane whose call sign matched that of the Turkish Air Force. She was released only after Mongolian authorities grounded the flight. Authoritarian leaders seem to be emboldened by Trump’s lukewarm approach to human rights and press freedoms. They probably took note of his praise for America’s post-9/11 torture and forced “renditions” of terrorism suspects. They have likely heard him characterize the U.S. media as “the enemy of the people.”

Saudi leaders, in particular, may have believed that their close relationship with Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would give them diplomatic cover. After all, when Riyadh excoriated Canada for speaking out on behalf of Saudi human rights activists, the White House did nothing. Now, the United States and other liberal democracies face a serious test. If they do not put down a clear marker in the case of Jamal Khashoggi, despots everywhere will quietly celebrate. Authoritarian regimes will target even more of their overseas critics, including journalists, and ignore empty calls for them to stop. This is how international norms are undone or upheld: one case at a time.

Roland Paris is professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa, research associate at Chatham House, and former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.