OUT OF SIGHT,
NOT OUT OF REACH
The Global Scale and Scope
of Transnational Repression
CASE STUDIES
Saudi Arabia
Pakistani soldiers patrol the streets as posters welcome Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman five months after the killing of journalist
Jamal Khashoggi. Image credit: Aamir Qureshi/AFP via Getty Images.
T
he Saudi Arabian government is perhaps the best known
in the world for targeting its nationals abroad. The brutal
2018 murder and dismemberment of dissident and journalist
Jamal Khashoggi inside the country’s Istanbul consulate
brought transnational repression into popular awareness.
Khashoggi’s killing was not an isolated event, but rather the
outcome of an increasingly physical, targeted campaign
against critics and former insiders, including members of the
royal family, that has rapidly escalated since Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman began his rise to power in 2015. This
campaign has included extensive use of spyware, coercion by
proxy, detentions, assaults, and renditions in nine countries
spanning the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Asia.208
Facilitating Riyadh’s extraterritorial efforts closer afield is a
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) security agreement that sets
broad parameters for cooperation against dissidents. The
Saudi Arabian government’s transnational repression campaign
also includes a uniquely gendered aspect; women fleeing
gender-based repression in the country face characteristic
transnational repression efforts from the state.
An escalating, personalized campaign
The Saudi transnational repression campaign is highly
personalized, as befits an absolute monarchy where
the royal house is identical to the state. Human rights
defenders, journalists, former insiders, and online critics are
vulnerable to charges of subverting that state, even if they
do not explicitly speak out against the royal family. Prince
Mohammed bin Salman became Minister of Defense in 2015
and Crown Prince in June 2017, and his rise to power tracks
closely with the regime’s recent transnational repression
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