‘I can speak when so many cannot’: a Saudi journalist kept speaking … until he vanished
Exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s Washington Post column, September 18 last year:
When I speak of the fear, intimidation, arrests and public shaming of intellectuals and religious leaders who dare to speak their minds, and then I tell you that I’m from Saudi Arabia, are you surprised? … I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice. To do otherwise would betray those who languish in prison. I can speak when so many cannot.
Khashoggi in the Post, April 3:
… people simply don’t dare to speak. The country has seen the blacklisting of those who dare raise their voices …
Middle East Monitor, October 2
Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has disappeared in Turkey after visiting the Saudi consulate, his fiance (who was waiting outside) reported today.
Associated Press, Sunday:
Turan Kislakci, a friend of Khashoggi (quoting Turkish officials): “What was explained to us is this: He was killed, make your funeral preparations … they said: ‘We have evidence he was killed in a barbaric way’ … Khashoggi was made to ‘faint’, then was dismembered.”
The Post, under a blank space replacing Khashoggi’s column, October 4:
Jamal Khashoggi’s words should appear in the space above …
The Post, Sunday:
… according to people with knowledge of Turkey’s investigation … a specially trained team of 15 from Saudi Arabia had travelled to Turkey to kill him in the consulate.
The Post’s editorial board, yesterday:
Saudi Arabia must immediately answer: Who were these 15 officials? What happened, precisely, inside the consulate?
Banksy shreds own artwork at auction. ABC’s Leigh Sales tweets yesterday:
I can’t get enough of that Banksy story and I have more questions: who bought it? What did they think? I thought it was absolutely thrilling and brilliant and true art!
Pulitzer-prize winning Australian critic Sebastian Smee isn’t so sure in his Washington Post column, Sunday:
Pablo Picasso once called painting “a sum of destructions”. Banksy, the anonymous British graffiti artist and popular provocateur, admitted he had Picasso in mind when he pulled off the most memorable art-world prank in years … Girl With Balloon had just sold for $1.4 million … (the) canvas then began sliding down inside its frame, emerging at the bottom in strips, having been shredded … It has already been suggested (it) will be worth more in its shredded state … If so, it would be a direct consequence of the artist’s genius for publicity. What, then, is the real problem here? Is it a system that values art in monetary terms in order for it to be exchanged on the market? Or is it a system in thrall to the currency of publicity and self-promotion? If it’s the latter, Banksy is deeply implicated.
Alan Jones, radio 2GB, yesterday:
Everyone’s bashing me up … about this Opera House story, and they’re saying we can’t have advertising on the Opera House or its heritage status will be compromised … and the Fairfax papers, of course, are leading the charge. Have a look at today’s Sydney Morning Herald. It says on its masthead, “Established in 1831”, and it says “Independent. Always”. The Herald’s front page, inside front page, back page and inside back page have all been sold off today to a travel company. Heritage — sold off to the highest bidder. You can’t have it both ways. Independent? Heritage? Never! Pull the other leg — it plays Nat King Cole.