BEIRUT, Lebanon – The arrival of Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the White House may indicate the beginning of a less amicable US relationship with Saudi Arabia, but the kingdom may point to recent progress in a number of issues that have long caused friction with the United States.
Saudi Arabia, which has long been one of the world’s most amazing executions, announced on Monday that executions would decrease by 85 percent in 2020 due to legal reforms. Groups who have read in Saudi textbooks the incitement against non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia say the most offensive examples have been cut out. And the sentences for two high-profile Saudis who are widely regarded as being prosecuted for their politics have apparently been calibrated to limit their time in prison, as Mr. Biden takes the lead over the most important ally of the kingdom.
Human rights campaigners applauded the changes while emphasizing the many places where the kingdom still does not guarantee basic rights.
“There have been many good reforms to be excited about, but the total absence of any form of free expression and the continued political repression has softened Saudi Arabia to get more credit for these changes,” said Adam Coogle, deputy director for the Middle, said. East for Human Rights Watch.
Most of the changes do not appear to be driven by a Saudi attempt to gain favor with the new government in Washington, but are the products of reforms proposed by the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. the corridor is set. Since his father ascended the throne in 2015, Prince Mohammed has become the driving force of the kingdom, which has diversified the economy from oil and backed strict social restrictions.
But along the way, he developed a reputation as thuggishness.
Prince Mohammed sent Saudi forces to Yemen, where they bombed civilians, and ordered waves to be arrested by clerics, activists and other members of the royal family. He is also thought to have sent the Saudi agents who murdered and broke up dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in Istanbul, although he denied any prior knowledge of the conspiracy.
Prince Mohammed has built a strong relationship with President Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, who often protected him from other people in the U.S. government who were angry at his actions.
Mr. Biden promised to take a different approach to the kingdom. During the presidential campaign, he described it as a “pariah”, and promised to stand up for human rights and called for a broad reassessment of the US-Saudi relationship.
Saudi officials have not publicly offered any steps to address the concerns of the Biden government. Saudi forces continue to fight in Yemen, and the Saudi trial over the team that Mr. Khashoggi’s assassination was ended months ago, without high officials being held accountable.
But recent changes in the kingdom may have some long-term sources of American irritation in the early days of Mr. Pray at least relieved.
On Monday, the Saudi Human Rights Commission announced that the kingdom executed 27 people in 2020, a fraction of the 184 executions that human rights groups recorded in 2019, when the country ranked just behind China and Iran. And the kingdom’s tradition of chopping down swordsmen, often in public squares, has long ranked even its closest Western partners.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the Saudi commission attributed much of the drop to a moratorium on the death penalty for drug-related offenses, which has accounted for a large portion of the total over the past few years.
“The commission welcomes this news as a sign that the kingdom and its legal system are focusing more on rehabilitation and prevention than just punishment,” Awwad Alawwad, head of the commission, said in the statement.
Mr. Alawwad also said the kingdom had abolished the death penalty for minors committed by minors, both citing changes as part of Prince Mohammed’s reforms.
Mr. Coogle of Human Rights Watch, which opposes the death penalty, welcomes the announced moratorium, but says it is not clear if it is contained in the law. New regulations have not been published, and the statement by the Saudi commission appears only on its English-language account, not in Arabic.
Even though fewer people are being executed, Mr. Coogle said the kingdom’s criminal justice system remains ‘notoriously unfair and biased’.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has made significant progress in the issue that has long undermined relations with the United States: content that is considered non-Muslim in Saudi textbooks.
U.S. officials have complained about Saudi textbooks – which celebrated jihad and martyrdom and portrayed Jews and Christians as enemies of the one true faith – since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, of which 15 of the 19 perpetrators were Saudi.
While the textbooks have been regularly adapted over the years, much of the contested material has remained.
Now a lot of it is gone. A recent review of Saudi textbooks for the 2020-21 school year found that most of the material considered anti-Semitic had been removed, as well as the text praising jihad saying homosexuals and lesbians should be punished with death.
The investigation by IMPACT-se, a research organization in Tel Aviv, has noticed many changes since its previous report last year. These include the removal of a chapter called ‘The Zionist Danger’ and a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad about Muslims killing all Jews at the end of the world.
Most references to jihad, including one calling it the ‘climax of Islam’, have also been removed.
The review found that the texts still contain a story about ‘Jewish transgressors’ described as apes, saying that ‘hellfire for all eternity’ awaits polytheists who do not repent.
But Marcus Sheff, the group’s chief executive, said in an interview that the Saudis were moving in the right direction, and faster than they had done before. “This curriculum is not free of hatred, not free of incitement,” he said, “but Saudi Arabia has clearly made a concerted effort, an institutional effort, to modernize the curriculum.”
The kingdom has been widely criticized for imprisoning and prosecuting leading Saudis on charges that motivated human rights groups as politicians.
Although the kingdom did not undo any convictions in the run-up to Biden’s government, it appears that the sentences handed down by two prominent Saudis in cases criticized by U.S. officials were aimed at keeping them out of jail while Mr. Praying in the White House.
Last week, an appeals court upheld the conviction of Walid Fitaihi, a Saudi-American doctor, on charges that include obtaining U.S. citizenship without permission and criticizing other Arab states on Twitter. But the court reduced his sentence to three years and two months, from six years.
Mr. Fitaihi has already served half of the new sentence, and the rest has been suspended, meaning he does not have to return to prison, although he has been banned from leaving Saudi Arabia for 38 months.
One of Saudi Arabia’s best-known prisoners, Loujain al-Hathloul, a women’s rights activist, was sentenced last month to five years and eight months in prison on charges that include sharing information with foreign diplomats and journalists and the Saudi political system. trying to change. .
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s National Security Adviser, criticized the sentence on Twitter as “unfair and restless.”
But two years of her sentence have been suspended and she has been given credit for the time, which means she could be released next month, after which Saudi officials no longer have to explain why such a prominent activist is behind bars.
Me. Al-Hathloul appealed against the sentence, as well as the court’s allegations that she was tortured by Saudi officials, after her arrest in 2017.