Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on perceived dissent has been on-again, off-again since Prince Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince, and over the past week, human rights groups say that it seems to be escalating once again.
A number of journalists, writers, and academics, the usual targets for the kingdom, have been swept up in this latest round of arrests. It’s not clear why many were picked up, as they hadn’t been publicly critical of the government in years.
With other major regional nations like Iraq and Iran seeing major outbursts of unrest and protest against government excess, the Saudis may believe they could face similar protests, and intend to remove a whole class of potential participants before it gets going.
Though that could be happening now because Iraq, in particular, is experiencing such a large, palpable anti-government movement, it might also suggest that the Saudi leadership is planning to do something it expects to be highly unpopular, and wants to preempt people who are likely to object to it.
KSA was in dire shape. Then MBS took over and told everyone they hadn’t seen nothing yet. So now he’s figuring out how he can keep his head on his shoulders and keep the KSA afloat , and that is quite a challenge with his support in the West tanking, the war on Yemen which costed mountains of money, will not deliver the new sources of income and led to damaged oil production, the financial extorsion of citizens which was not appreciated by them, the selling off of part of Aramco which risks ending in disaster and the 80 billion yearly protection money he has to pay to the US. To name a few reasons.
Clown prince just doesn’t see where the train is headed or if he, the engineer will be-be-hesded.. Probably a bad move to imprison & then rob his fellow princes… The long Knives are razor chart & lookin to get their cut. Will clown who made the kingdom look weak be be the cutee, or the cutter when heads roll..?