WASHINGTON (The Hill) – U.S. President Biden came into office calling Saudi Arabia a “pariah” and promising to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy.
But advocates and regional experts say the president has failed to impose serious costs on Riyadh, while emboldening the kingdom’s day-to-day ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, to act with impunity when it comes to respecting human rights, including the targeting of dissidents.
The administration stresses it brings up the issue of human rights in its meetings with Saudi officials, continuing to raise the 2018 murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of a Saudi hit squad operating with the approval of the crown prince.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, standing alongside the Saudi foreign minister at the State Department on Thursday, said the two countries work together on “very significant issues, from climate to energy to Yemen to Iran.”
The secretary added that he would also talk “about the continued progress we hope to see in Saudi Arabia on rights.”
But critics argue that the Saudis are dismissing such rhetoric from the administration.
Advocates say that the disappearance and jailing of dissidents is ongoing, allegations of torture in prison are widespread and decades-long sentences are out of proportion with the alleged crimes.
“I think the Saudis are showing their utter contempt for Joe Biden’s human rights policy,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project who has served four presidents as an adviser on the Middle East.
“They’ve had more than eight months now to size up the administration and they’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not serious on this issue.”
Areej Al Sadhan, whose brother Abdulrahman was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a 20-year travel ban in Saudi Arabia for running a satirical Twitter account that was deemed critical of the kingdom, is calling for the president to more forcefully hold Riyadh to account.
He’s one of 89 U.S. persons that the nonprofit group Freedom Initiative estimates have been disappeared, detained, or under travel bans at some point in 2021 in Saudi Arabia, according to a report they published this month.
A Saudi appeals court upheld Abdulrahman’s four-decade sentence last week, prompting a statement of condemnation from the State Department.
A senior administration official, in response to an inquiry from The Hill, said that senior U.S. Government officials have raised Abdulrahman’s case directly with senior Saudi officials, including Prince Mohammed.
The official said that national security adviser Jake Sullivan, during his trip to Saudi Arabia last month, also raised the cases of American citizens detained in the country.
Al Sadhan said that isn’t enough.