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Saudi dissidents 'betrayed' by Biden trip as he defends his planned visit
Saudi dissidents and activists have accused President Joe Biden of betraying them with his plans to visit Saudi Arabia.
International
As President Joe Biden defended his plans to visit Saudi Arabia, a country he once vowed to make an international “pariah,” Saudis who have fought to reform the absolute monarchy called the trip a betrayal that could have devastating consequences.
“We feel betrayed,” Abdullah Alaoudh, a U.S.-based leader of the National Assembly Party, an opposition group, told NBC News in a phone interview Monday. “We were promised to be protected from MBS,” he said, referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
With Biden expected to meet the crown prince, Alaoudh said he feared the president’s visit could embolden Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader to “be more brutal and rogue.” Bin Salman has led a crackdown on reformers and women’s rights activists and the CIA has said likely ordered the brutal killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Bin Salman has said he takes full responsibility for Khashoggi’s murder, but denies any involvement in the slaying of the journalist — an outspoken critic of the crown prince.
Regional powerbroker Saudi Arabia, one of the largest oil producers in the world and the home of Islam’s two holiest sites, has been a vital American ally. And before Khashoggi’s killing in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the crown prince had launched an effort to modernize the deeply conservative kingdom economically and socially. Reforms mean women are now allowed to drive and movie theaters have opened for the first time in 35 years.