Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey Oct. 2, 2018. In June of 2017, Jamal Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia during its crackdown on dissent and decided to pursue his passion of journalism in Washington Post. Then this year in May, he met Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish PhD student to whom he soon became engaged. On Sept. 28, Khashoggi went to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document that states that he divorced his ex-wife. This document would allow Khashoggi to legally marry Cengiz. Cengiz later stated that the consulate staff “welcomed him warmly and assured him that the necessary paperwork would come through.”
On Oct 2, accompanied by Cengiz, Khashoggi arrived at the consulate. He went into the consulate by himself at 1:14 P.M. and leaves his phone with Cengiz outside the consulate. After he did not emerge for many hours, she began to calling friends telling them he had not emerged. The next day, the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, told Bloomberg that Khashoggi left after “a few minutes or one hour.” He said that Turkish authorities can search the building. “We have nothing to hide,” he said. 18 days later, Khashoggi was confirmed dead by Saudi Arabian officials.
This event has caused a lot of controversy across the world. Turkish and Saudi Arabian officials have been clashing over this event, with the Turkish trying to expose the truth, while the Saudi Arabians are trying to cover it up. President Trump has also commented on the event when asked by a journalist from the Wall Street Journal asked if he believed the claims. Trump then said, “I want to believe him. I really want to believe him. They’ve been a very good ally. They’ve been a tremendous investor in our military equipment and other things. They buy tremendous amounts of things from our country. It probably amounts to millions of jobs, you know, a million jobs. That’s a lot of jobs. So I certainly want to believe him.” (Wall Street Journal) This outraged many for Khashoggi’s side.
On Oct 14, Saudi Arabia came out and said that Khashoggi died in a “fistfight,” though many know that is not the truth because of many recordings that have come out, proving that Khashoggi was tortured and killed. As the news on this topic progresses, the outrage from many people across grows strongly. Khashoggi will go down in history, not for the articles he wrote, but for the fury he instilled in people fighting for human rights across the world.
