Loujain Al Hathloul, the Nobel-nominated Saudi women's rights activist, stands trial tomorrow. Here's a very important thread ahead of that. Please read & share.
Loujain is an influential, brave Saudi women's rights activist who was arrested in 2018 along with other Saudi women's rights activists. She was accused of a bunch of trumped up charges, most seriously treason. These charges have absolutely no basis. theguardian.com/world/2020/nov…
Loujain and the other women were tortured by beatings, electrocution, waterboarding, and sexual harassment. MBS's right-hand man, Saud Al Qahtani, was present during her torture. She was asked to sign forced confessions. We do not know if she did. theguardian.com/global-develop…
The government thought they'd break Loujain, but they didn't. Even from her prison she continued to be a serious problem for MBS and his regime. As international solidarity and publicity around the case increased, the problem to MBS grew. edition.cnn.com/2020/11/21/mid…
And so Loujain became a serious problem for MBS. Two recent events made this problem more urgent for him. First, Loujain has been on hunger strike and her health has been waning. Second, MBS's most important protector, Trump, has just lost the US election bbc.com/news/world-mid…
Aware of his situation, MBS wants to enter the Biden era with fewer lingering problems, despite all the disasters he's created. So he decided to put Loujain on trial tomorrow, hoping that a conclusion to the trial can make the problem go away...
Here's the two most likely outcomes of the trial:
- They convict Loujain on trumped up charges, then "pardon" her or say she's already served her sentence
- They release Loujain due to insufficient evidence while keeping her under heavy restrictions
In both cases, Loujain would be kept under some sort of house arrest, travel ban, and media ban for the rest of her life. This is *completely* unacceptable to anybody who is campaigning for her and will do nothing to stop the international campaigns. In fact, it'll inflame them.
Loujain should be:
- Released unconditionally
- Compensated for the horrors she was put through
- Her torturers should be arrested
- All restrictions on her freedom of movement should be lifted
Anything less, and she's effectively still in prison.
MBS wants to make this go away.
Trump used to cover up for him, now he's entering uncharted waters.
Don't let him get away with this.
Kindly retweet.
Please quote-retweet this thread. I will retweet your replies.
Update: MBS's regime referred Loujain to terrorism court. Commentary here.
This is absolutely delusional from Blinken, Biden's pick for Sec of State. The normalization agreements are the end of the land-for-peace paradigm, and therefore the end of any little leverage the Arab side had. This makes them the end of Palestinian statehood and the 2SS.
The end of the 2SS is the end of liberal Zionism, because the only alternative to a 2SS under current conditions is a one-state apartheid reality (in other words, the undeclared status quo).
Liberal Zionism requires a *real* Palestinian state, and Palestinians will not accept any less regardless how much you try to crush them into accepting it. Ideologues can stop being ideologues, we cannot stop being Palestinian.
White Evangelicals
Right-wing Israelis
Gulf counter-revolutionary princes
Quite the alliance.
United in their commitment to stopping history in its tracks.
Exactly this. The Israeli right thinks they can shepherd this alliance of convenience towards their goals, but what they can't see is that it'll burn them worst.
The worst thing that happened to the MENA over the last 200 years was colonialism, and the absolute worst effect of colonialism was the ideology of the ethnic nation-state and the various nationalisms that it produced. We have been bleeding for over 100 years.
The majorities are afraid of the minorities and think that suppressing them is the best way to avoid their "separatism". Meanwhile the minorities are afraid of the majorities and think that keeping them living under a boot is the best way to avoid their hegemony.
The result is over a century of nationalisms and counter-nationalisms, of hatred and counter-hatred, of ethnic cleansing and genocide, of creating hierarchies for human worth among children of the same region who had lived side by side since the beginning of written history
As a rule, radicalized people who can find a powerful actor to act out violence on their behalf will invest in that powerful actor rather than commit the violence themselves. The Hindutva and the CCCP run governments, if you're partisan to their ideology you invest in them.
Meanwhile, there is no Islamist government equivalent among Sunni Islam (people point at Erdogan but so far he's more a cynical Turkish politician than a pan-Islamist militant populist). For this reason if you're an Islamist extremist you have to take matters into your own hands.
This false idea that Muslims are uniquely radicalizable and uniquely violent is an idea that is also popular among Arab autocrats who want the world to treat Muslims as especially dangerous, as part of a narrative to deny us political agency. These narratives are not innocent.
The root cause of violent extremism is not that an ideology exists. The question to ask is *why* someone would find that ideology convincing. The reasons for that are virtually always personal, not ideological. Pressured communities are full of potential customers.
Also, even in the lack of an ideology, potential customers can simply concoct their own ideology that answers their needs, of simply concoct an elaborate conspiracy theory that skips ideology altogether. Look at QAnon for example.
The "breeding grounds" of violent extremism are not ideologies - they're disenfranchisement, alienation, crises of identity & purpose, anger, feeling like you don't belong and don't matter, etc. Once someone feels like that, they'll seek out an ideology that suits them.
Hey @EmmanuelMacron, this Libyan activist made a video criticizing your sometime ally in Libya. She just got shot dead in cold blood. Wanna tell us about why we're in crisis, you neocolonialist piece of shit?