Loujain al-Hathloul in London in 2017.CreditNina Manandhar
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Loujain al-Hathloul in London in 2017.CreditCreditNina Manandhar
Remember this name: Loujain (pronounced Loo-JAYNE) al-Hathloul. She is 29 years old and a courageous advocate for gender equality — so she is in a Saudi Arabian prison, and reportedly our Saudi allies have tortured her, even waterboarded her.
There has properly been global outrage at Saudi Arabia’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post and resident of Virginia. Jamal was a friend of mine, and I find it infuriating that President Trump and other officials won’t hold Saudi Arabia accountable for killing and dismembering him.
Still, we can’t bring him back. So let’s direct equal attention to those still alive — like Hathloul, along with nine other women’s rights activists who are also in custody, including some who say they have endured torture.
Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner bet big on the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, but they were bamboozled. M.B.S. isn’t a great reformer, and he isn’t coming clean about Khashoggi’s murder.
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Nor is he releasing Hathloul, who, along with others, had peacefully and persistently campaigned for years to allow women the right to drive.
In 2014, she was arrested when she tried to drive into Saudi Arabia with a driver’s license from the United Arab Emirates, nominally valid also in Saudi Arabia. Then in 2015, Hathloul was one of the first women to run for a seat on a municipal council. (She lost).
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37:06
‘Ladies First’: Saudi Arabia’s Female Candidates
In this documentary, The Times takes us into the largely inaccessible world of Saudi women by profiling three women running for public office, including Loujain al-Hathloul, in the first Saudi election open to female candidates.CreditCreditYousur Al-Hlou for The New York Times
She moved to the emirates. But in 2017, Saudi security forces effectively kidnapped her and her husband and returned them to the kingdom. The couple have divorced, and while accounts differ, some believe this is because of pressure the government placed on the husband.
Shortly before women were allowed to drive last June, the government rearrested Hathloul, along with other women’s rights activists who had fought for the right the government was about to grant.
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“She said she had been held in solitary confinement, beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed and threatened with rape and murder,” her sister, Alia al-Hathloul, who lives in Belgium, wrote in a searing Op-Ed in The Times this month, recounting what Loujain had told their parents when they saw her. “My parents then saw that her thighs were blackened by bruises.”
Despite being threatened with rape and murder and having her body thrown into the sewage system, Hathloul would not stay silent and reported the torture to her parents.
Her sister said Loujain was “shaking uncontrollably, unable to hold her grip, to walk or sit normally.”
The other imprisoned women suffered similar treatment, according to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and their families. They were said to have been subjected to electric shocks, whippings, forced kissing and hugging, threats of rape and more. Some were tied to a metal bed and flogged.
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“Loujain’s abuse exemplifies the methods of Saudi thuggish and lawless leadership, hellbent on exacting sadistic vengeance against any citizen who dares to think freely,” Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch told me. “The Saudi people owe a huge debt to Loujain.”
A government spokesman did not respond to my inquiries about why Hathloul was imprisoned and tortured. A pro-government newspaper did suggest that Hathloul is a traitor who could even deserve to be executed.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has stepped up the pace of executions, with about 150 reported last year. Apparently for the first time, prosecutors have sought the death penalty for a woman who is a nonviolent human rights defender, Israa al-Ghomgham.
Loujain al-Hathloul recorded a video in 2014 showing her driving in the United Arab Emirates toward the border with Saudi Arabia.CreditLoujain al-Hathloul, via Associated Press
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Loujain al-Hathloul recorded a video in 2014 showing her driving in the United Arab Emirates toward the border with Saudi Arabia.CreditLoujain al-Hathloul, via Associated Press
Trump is right that Saudi Arabia is an important ally. That’s why it’s important that it have a decent, modernizing leader, rather than one who feuds with neighbors, kidnaps Lebanon’s prime minister, invades Yemen, murders a journalist and tortures outspoken women.
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Saudi politics are murky, but there are whispers that the crown prince will not necessarily be elevated to king on the death of his father. Yet Trump, Pompeo and Kushner are acting as M.B.S.’s protectors and backers — so the world could be stuck with M.B.S. as a destabilizing and oppressive ruler for the next half century.
America doesn’t have much leverage to improve human rights in countries like China, Venezuela or Iran. But we have enormous leverage over Saudi Arabia, because it depends on us for its security. Yet Trump, Pompeo and Kushner refuse to use that leverage.
I can’t find any indication that any official in the Trump administration has even publicly mentioned Hathloul’s name or called for her release. So I hope Congress will step up, oversee the relationship and ask tough questions about why we are silent when our close ally waterboards a woman seeking equal rights.
Saudi Arabia will never live up to its potential as long as it treats women as second-class citizens. What’s at stake is not only justice but also stability,economic development and peace in the region.
Thus I urge the Nobel Peace Prize committee to consider selecting Hathloul this year.
Nicholas Kristof has been a columnist for The Times since 2001. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of China and of the genocide in Darfur. You can sign up for his free, twice-weekly email newsletter and follow him on Instagram. @NickKristof•Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SR11 of the New York edition with the headline: Tortured For Wanting To Drive. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Nicholas Kristof Human rights, women’s rights, health, global affairs.
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Sulfuric hydrofluoric acid's evaporating fumes will dissolve any living organism into vapor.
A man is turned into water vapour. His cells are in a billionth of a second , hotter than the surface of the Sun. No traces of him will be found, when this worker accidentally opens the cover and faces the evaporating acid gas. He is mixed in the air.
Watch it if you are strong hearted.
This video did the social media (Whatsapp in particular) circuit post demonitisation about a year ago. The wrath of the people spilled out onto the streets with their dissatisfaction and anger at the demonitisation progrom and various other factors.
Although, the video showing a mock funeral procession of Modi with the protestors chanting risque and highly objectionable slogans, is morally unacceptable to any right-thinking individual, it is sadly the anger of the people seeking an outlet, expression.
When shown to a police officer he opined, it was from one of the northern Indian states, probably Uttar Pradesh.
However, after about a year, the video has once again resurfaced. This time with a very different context and description which I am displaying below:
तीन राज्यों में कांग्रेस की जीत पर पाकिस्तान में मोदी जी कि शव यात्रा निकाली गई वो भी भद्दी भद्दी गालियों के साथ।
हिंदू अब भी नहीं जागा तो तुम्हारा अन्त निश्चित है।पाकिस्तान इतना खुश क्यों हुआ अपने आप से पूंछो।
To mislead people to such an extent in this manner is utterly condemnable and wrong. To play upon the Hindu and anti-Pak sentiments is even worse.
I received this last week again, being a part of a Whatsapp group of expats in the Steel industry, who are trying to recover their unpaid dues from a steel giant, by approaching Mr Modi directly.
After raising strong objections regarding the post, I left the group when the post was not deleted. The active admin (a good friend of mine) scolded me since many senior managers/directors left the group because I had raised the issue of the highly objectionable video/post. He had words of rebuke in abundance for me and blaming me with the many departures from the group. But he had nothing to say about/to our non-Muslim colleague who had posted it on the group thread.
Anyway, I lost some good friends as this whole distasteful episode unfolded. But I had to raise my voice against whoever is poisoning the fraternal atmosphere of our group, our society, our nation. Jai Hind!
