Saudi ‘megacity’ protester foretells his own death

Tribal activist who criticised Crown Prince’s plans for metropolis dies in a hail of bullets

ABDUL-RAHIM AL-HOWEITI glared into the camera as he made a chilling prediction.

“I won’t be surprised if they storm my house now, put guns in my home, then kill me and call me a terrorist,” he said, in a video protest against a Saudi Arabian “megacity” that is due to be built on the site of his home.

Shortly after posting that video and still refusing to abandon his house, the activist from the Howeitat tribe died in a hail of Saudi security forces’ bullets.

Mr Howeiti was well-known for his bold, if eccentric, one-man campaign against the $500billion (£400billion) construction project, reportedly set to displace thousands in north-western

Saudi Arabia. Footage posted online showed the aftermath of the confrontation, with bullet holes visible on the walls of his house.

In his video messages, Mr Howeiti appeared desperate and distressed, saying he was ready to die for his cause.

After several days of protests on social media, the government issued a formal response to his death, claiming police had no choice but to shoot Mr Howeiti, as he was firing bullets and hurling Molotov cocktails at them.

“He did not respond to appeals surrender and security forces neutralised the threat,” an official statement said.

The death of a member of the Howeitat tribe, once romanticised by TE Lawrence in his memoirs, has brought controversy to the futuristic project known as Neom City.

The Howeitat tribe has inhabited the area for hundreds of years. Now, it risks being displaced by the brainchild of Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, who dreams of filling the futuristic tourist attraction with flying cars, robot dinosaurs and a virtual moon.

But since the shooting, Mr Howeiti has been hailed as the “martyr of Neom” by critics of the Crown Prince and his megacity.

Of Mr Howeiti, Omar bin Abdulaziz, a prominent Saudi political activist, told London-based news website The New Arab: “His killing and the shedding of his blood is both unjust and unlawful when there were thousands of solutions before that.”

Last year, the Wall Street Journal that around 20,000 people may be forced from towns to make way for Neom city.

Relocation is expected to finish in 2025 but the project is on hold during the coronavirus outbreak. The Saudi government has said it will compensate those who leave their homes.

But this did not placate Mr Howeiti, who claimed in one of his final videos: “To me, nothing is worse than me having to leave my home.

“Everything else is easy to take, including being killed.”