13 july 2019
The FBI has reportedly approached US-based Saudi dissidents and others connected to Jamal Khashoggi to warn them of a potential threat to their lives after the Riyadh-sponsored murder of the prominent journalist.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, at least four Saudis and an Arab dissident in the US told the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal on Friday that they had received visits by FBI agents following the killing of Khashogg by a Saudi hit inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2, 2018.
Some of them said the agents had tried to calm them and called first and then meeting in a public location near their home.
“They (FBI agents) were like, ‘Yep, we are worried about your safety. Your name has been flagged here in certain circles and in Europe’,” said the Arab activist, who had been working with Khashoggi.
He said that the agents had told him that they were sorry about the murder of Khashoggi and that they were “doing everything we can to get to the bottom of it.”
One of the Saudi dissidents, who met with the FBI agents in early November, said, “I told them that I’m kind of afraid to deal with you guys because the current government has worked closely with [Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi government.”
“They said, ‘Don’t worry. We are here to protect people from everywhere. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House,” he added.
The dissident also noted he had grown wary when the agents suggested that he could help the FBI in return, if he chose to do so, for assistance with his asylum case.
Another Arab dissident said that he had been asked if agents could visit him again and replied, “'If it’s just for a chat or something, I’m not available.' I didn’t want to have a regular thing with him.”
Meanwhile, an FBI spokesperson claimed in an email sent to the MEE that the agency “regularly interacts with members of the communities we serve to build mutual trust around protecting the American public”.
Back in May, The Time reported that the CIA and foreign security services had sent warnings to at least 3 Khashoggi associates in Norway, Canada and the US that their continuation of pro-democracy work has made them targets of potential retaliation from Saudi Arabia.
Prominent human rights activist Iyad el-Baghdadi, who lives in political asylum in Oslo, was one of those who had been approached by the CIA.
He told the MEE that the US intelligence agencies’ attempts to stop potential Saudi activity show their level of concern.
“They know that MBS is deeply problematic and a terrible ally, an ally who threatened people on your own territory for God's sakes. What kind of ally does this?” he said referring to Mohammed bin Salman.
“In the end, what does it say that they are unable to convince the guy in the White House that this is a problem? It tells us that US intelligence agencies completely know that this guy is trouble and that the only reason he can continue to do this is [Trump's son-in-law and law and senior adviser] Jared Kushner and Donald Trump.”
Last month, Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, presented findings of her six-month investigation into Khashoggi's murder case.
In her 101-page report, she said that there is “sufficient credible evidence” indicating that the Saudi crown prince bears responsibility for the murder, and that he should be investigated for the murder.
Recently, she criticized the United States for inaction over Khashoggi's case.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, at least four Saudis and an Arab dissident in the US told the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal on Friday that they had received visits by FBI agents following the killing of Khashogg by a Saudi hit inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2, 2018.
Some of them said the agents had tried to calm them and called first and then meeting in a public location near their home.
“They (FBI agents) were like, ‘Yep, we are worried about your safety. Your name has been flagged here in certain circles and in Europe’,” said the Arab activist, who had been working with Khashoggi.
He said that the agents had told him that they were sorry about the murder of Khashoggi and that they were “doing everything we can to get to the bottom of it.”
One of the Saudi dissidents, who met with the FBI agents in early November, said, “I told them that I’m kind of afraid to deal with you guys because the current government has worked closely with [Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi government.”
“They said, ‘Don’t worry. We are here to protect people from everywhere. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House,” he added.
The dissident also noted he had grown wary when the agents suggested that he could help the FBI in return, if he chose to do so, for assistance with his asylum case.
Another Arab dissident said that he had been asked if agents could visit him again and replied, “'If it’s just for a chat or something, I’m not available.' I didn’t want to have a regular thing with him.”
Meanwhile, an FBI spokesperson claimed in an email sent to the MEE that the agency “regularly interacts with members of the communities we serve to build mutual trust around protecting the American public”.
Back in May, The Time reported that the CIA and foreign security services had sent warnings to at least 3 Khashoggi associates in Norway, Canada and the US that their continuation of pro-democracy work has made them targets of potential retaliation from Saudi Arabia.
Prominent human rights activist Iyad el-Baghdadi, who lives in political asylum in Oslo, was one of those who had been approached by the CIA.
He told the MEE that the US intelligence agencies’ attempts to stop potential Saudi activity show their level of concern.
“They know that MBS is deeply problematic and a terrible ally, an ally who threatened people on your own territory for God's sakes. What kind of ally does this?” he said referring to Mohammed bin Salman.
“In the end, what does it say that they are unable to convince the guy in the White House that this is a problem? It tells us that US intelligence agencies completely know that this guy is trouble and that the only reason he can continue to do this is [Trump's son-in-law and law and senior adviser] Jared Kushner and Donald Trump.”
Last month, Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, presented findings of her six-month investigation into Khashoggi's murder case.
In her 101-page report, she said that there is “sufficient credible evidence” indicating that the Saudi crown prince bears responsibility for the murder, and that he should be investigated for the murder.
Recently, she criticized the United States for inaction over Khashoggi's case.
8 july 2019
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's policies have prompted large groups of Muslims across the world to boycott this year's Hajj ceremony, a new report suggests, citing concerns that Riyadh may use the revenues from the pilgrimage to pursue the young prince's destructive foreign policies, including his deadly war on the people of Yemen.
The American magazine Foreign Policy said in a report on Sunday that Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses and its horrific murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi had raised concerns throughout the Middle East and in other Muslim-majority nations around the world. Riyadh's frictions with Tehran were also were also named as a strong reason behind the trend.
“The rising death toll of civilians killed by Saudi bombs in Yemen, the horrific slaughter of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, and Riyadh’s aggressive approach to the Iran crisis have led some of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni allies to reconsider their unwavering support for the kingdom,” the report said.
Khashoggi, a former advocate of the Saudi royal court who later became a critic of bin Salman, was killed and his body dismembered by a Saudi hit squad after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi was a columnist, said last November the CIA had concluded that bin Salman personally ordered his killing.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, when bin Salman was just the kingdom's defense minister, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the Saudi-led war has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.
The Riyadh regime has spent much of its annual income on major arms deals with the US, the UK and several other European nations. The spending has been so huge that the kingdom overtook Franceand India last year to become world's third biggest military spender after only the US and China.
In late April, Libya’s Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani urged Muslims to abstain from traveling to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage more than once, saying the kingdom uses Hajj revenues to commit crimes against "fellow Muslims."
Depending on the pilgrim's nationality, Hajj costs thousands of dollars per person. Hajj and Umrah make up 20 percent of Saudi Arabia’s non-oil-related GDP.
Foreign Policy said Ghariani is not the first notable Muslim scholar to back a ban on the pilgrimage.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, another Sunni cleric and vocal critic of Saudi Arabia, said in a fatwa in last August that “seeing Muslims feeding the hungry, treating the sick, and sheltering the homeless are better viewed by Allah than spending money on the Hajj.”
The magazine noted that the crown prince’s attempts “to cast Saudi Arabia in a more positive light and mask the country’s more aggressive internal and foreign policies by undertaking so-called liberal reforms” has not been enough to silence “those who continue to draw attention to his government’s human rights abuses.”
MbS has been touring the world as part of a charm offensive to lure in investors. He has also attempted to present a more open Saudi society by granting women some of the basic rights that had been outlawed for years.
Also under his watch, Saudi Arabia has stepped up politically-motivated arrests, prosecution and conviction of peaceful dissident writers, human rights campaigners and independent clerics. Saudi officials have also intensified security measures in the Shia-populated Eastern Province.
The American magazine Foreign Policy said in a report on Sunday that Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses and its horrific murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi had raised concerns throughout the Middle East and in other Muslim-majority nations around the world. Riyadh's frictions with Tehran were also were also named as a strong reason behind the trend.
“The rising death toll of civilians killed by Saudi bombs in Yemen, the horrific slaughter of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, and Riyadh’s aggressive approach to the Iran crisis have led some of Saudi Arabia’s Sunni allies to reconsider their unwavering support for the kingdom,” the report said.
Khashoggi, a former advocate of the Saudi royal court who later became a critic of bin Salman, was killed and his body dismembered by a Saudi hit squad after being lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi was a columnist, said last November the CIA had concluded that bin Salman personally ordered his killing.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, when bin Salman was just the kingdom's defense minister, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the Saudi-led war has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.
The Riyadh regime has spent much of its annual income on major arms deals with the US, the UK and several other European nations. The spending has been so huge that the kingdom overtook Franceand India last year to become world's third biggest military spender after only the US and China.
In late April, Libya’s Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani urged Muslims to abstain from traveling to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage more than once, saying the kingdom uses Hajj revenues to commit crimes against "fellow Muslims."
Depending on the pilgrim's nationality, Hajj costs thousands of dollars per person. Hajj and Umrah make up 20 percent of Saudi Arabia’s non-oil-related GDP.
Foreign Policy said Ghariani is not the first notable Muslim scholar to back a ban on the pilgrimage.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, another Sunni cleric and vocal critic of Saudi Arabia, said in a fatwa in last August that “seeing Muslims feeding the hungry, treating the sick, and sheltering the homeless are better viewed by Allah than spending money on the Hajj.”
The magazine noted that the crown prince’s attempts “to cast Saudi Arabia in a more positive light and mask the country’s more aggressive internal and foreign policies by undertaking so-called liberal reforms” has not been enough to silence “those who continue to draw attention to his government’s human rights abuses.”
MbS has been touring the world as part of a charm offensive to lure in investors. He has also attempted to present a more open Saudi society by granting women some of the basic rights that had been outlawed for years.
Also under his watch, Saudi Arabia has stepped up politically-motivated arrests, prosecution and conviction of peaceful dissident writers, human rights campaigners and independent clerics. Saudi officials have also intensified security measures in the Shia-populated Eastern Province.
7 july 2019
by Dr. Amira Abo el-Fetouh
During the rule of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid, Theodor Herzl made an offer to buy Palestine in order to move the Jews of the world there, but the Sultan rejected the offer.
Last week, Herzl’s ideological grandson, Jared Kushner, went to Bahrain to ask the Arabs to sell Palestine in order to move the Palestinians to Jordan, Sinai, Lebanon, Syria and the rest of the world.
The Arabs accepted the offer previously rejected by the Ottomans and agreed to sell it cheaply, for just $50 billion. This is the price of conceding Palestine, which is a tenth of what Donald Trump obtained during just one visit to Saudi Arabia. This is the price of our martyrs and dignity in the eyes of the Arab gentlemen who went to Bahrain and rushed to normalise relations with the Israeli enemy. They sat as obedient slaves, listening as their master, Kushner, gave them a lecture.
The Bahrain workshop was basically a market to sell land, dignity and pride for a few dirhams. The corruption and shame reached the highest level when the Bahraini Foreign Minister said that the Palestinians did not have the right to reject the deal, and that he and his kind would pressure them to accept it.
The purpose of the cursed “deal of the century” is to end the conflict between the Arabs and Israel, without resolving it and reaching a just settlement. In order to do so, normalisation must occur between the Arabs and Israel by means of bribes presented in the form of investments and economic deals in the occupied Palestinian territories that would improve the poor economic conditions of the Palestinians both in the West Bank and Gaza, who are suffering from extreme hardship imposed by the Israeli enemy.
They are replacing the political side of the Palestinian cause with the economic side, exchanging cash and economic development for the politics; that’s the main goal of the US plan. They think that this money, which will certainly be from the Gulf, will blind the Palestinians and make them forget the central issue and national project to establish their independent state. They will also tempt the countries hosting Palestinian refugees to settle them permanently, thus cancelling the legitimate right of return. We must keep in mind Trump’s decision last year to cut all funding to UNRWA and his request to other countries to do the same; the agency provides essential services to Palestinian refugees in their miserable camps, including food, healthcare and education.
In order to know why Trump cut funding to UNRWA, we must understand the importance of this agency and its role. It was established in 1949 after the previous year’s Nakba and the expulsion of no less than 800,000 Palestinians from their homes in Palestine. The label “refugee” includes all of the Palestinians who left Palestine in 1948, including their children and grandchildren, now totalling 5.4 million people according to UNRWA statistics. The US administration regards this as one of the major obstacles to peace between the Palestinians and Israel.
Cutting aid was the first step towards ending the refugee issue, which is the most complicated one on the negotiating table, and thus at a stroke eliminate the “right of return”. Kushner is Trump’s Zionist son-in-law and advisor; he is tasked with closing down UNRWA and stripping the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip of refugee status so that the Americans can say that there are only 500,000 refugees instead of 5.4 million.
This is where the idea of resettling Palestinian refugees in neighbouring Arab countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, originated, although it is actually an old idea from the 1950s which was completely rejected by the Arab governments in order to preserve Palestinian identity. As such, they did not grant the Palestinians citizenship of the countries in which they sought refuge; they are guests in the host countries, keeping the right of return valid. The Arab League made this decision when it was still a serious body.
We cannot separate any of this from the Nation State Law passed by Israel last year, with which it exposed its ugly racism. This law makes Palestine a land solely for the Jewish people and Hebrew the only official language in the country. The law also makes the Arabs an official minority and imposes on Palestinians the inevitability of accepting either to leave the state or agree to be second class citizens who do not have the right to demand equal rights.
This further establishes the major lies promoted by the Zionists for a century that Palestine is the land of the Jewish people only; that it is the Promised Land granted to them by God; that the Palestinian presence in the country is an occupation; and that the war in 1948 was a war to liberate the land from the Palestinian “occupiers”.
The Zionists also claim that the land on which they are building settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank is not “occupied”, but simply part of the expansion of the Jewish homeland. That is why the Nation State Law says that, “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation” and that immigration leading to immediate citizenship is granted only to the Jewish people in an effort to end the right of return issue permanently.
The only goal behind the Bahrain workshop remains to perpetuate the Zionist occupation in the Palestinian territories and the loss of Palestinian rights, which no Palestinian or free-minded Arab will accept. There is no way that the Palestinians would choose the economy over their national project and right to establish an independent state. In fact, the political aspect of any peace deal should come before the economic part, and from that should emerge the investments and economic projects for Palestinian citizens. This is what the US does not understand. It believes that the Palestinians will rejoice at economic incentives as an alternative to an independent state that they have for so long demanded as a condition for any sustainable peace negotiations with the Israelis.
The Bahrain workshop of betrayal became a quagmire of shame and disgrace from which it will never emerge, as were all of the shameful conferences that were held before it to normalise relations with the Israeli enemy. They are all destined for the dustbin of history; Trump’s “deal of the century” will not pass unchallenged. The Arab nation still has a pulse and it refuses to concede historic Palestine as long as the resistance in Gaza bares its teeth and does not bargain or concede the land. Peace will not be achieved without the Palestinians receiving all of their rights and establishing a free and independent state.
~Middle East Monitor/Days of Palestine
During the rule of the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid, Theodor Herzl made an offer to buy Palestine in order to move the Jews of the world there, but the Sultan rejected the offer.
Last week, Herzl’s ideological grandson, Jared Kushner, went to Bahrain to ask the Arabs to sell Palestine in order to move the Palestinians to Jordan, Sinai, Lebanon, Syria and the rest of the world.
The Arabs accepted the offer previously rejected by the Ottomans and agreed to sell it cheaply, for just $50 billion. This is the price of conceding Palestine, which is a tenth of what Donald Trump obtained during just one visit to Saudi Arabia. This is the price of our martyrs and dignity in the eyes of the Arab gentlemen who went to Bahrain and rushed to normalise relations with the Israeli enemy. They sat as obedient slaves, listening as their master, Kushner, gave them a lecture.
The Bahrain workshop was basically a market to sell land, dignity and pride for a few dirhams. The corruption and shame reached the highest level when the Bahraini Foreign Minister said that the Palestinians did not have the right to reject the deal, and that he and his kind would pressure them to accept it.
The purpose of the cursed “deal of the century” is to end the conflict between the Arabs and Israel, without resolving it and reaching a just settlement. In order to do so, normalisation must occur between the Arabs and Israel by means of bribes presented in the form of investments and economic deals in the occupied Palestinian territories that would improve the poor economic conditions of the Palestinians both in the West Bank and Gaza, who are suffering from extreme hardship imposed by the Israeli enemy.
They are replacing the political side of the Palestinian cause with the economic side, exchanging cash and economic development for the politics; that’s the main goal of the US plan. They think that this money, which will certainly be from the Gulf, will blind the Palestinians and make them forget the central issue and national project to establish their independent state. They will also tempt the countries hosting Palestinian refugees to settle them permanently, thus cancelling the legitimate right of return. We must keep in mind Trump’s decision last year to cut all funding to UNRWA and his request to other countries to do the same; the agency provides essential services to Palestinian refugees in their miserable camps, including food, healthcare and education.
In order to know why Trump cut funding to UNRWA, we must understand the importance of this agency and its role. It was established in 1949 after the previous year’s Nakba and the expulsion of no less than 800,000 Palestinians from their homes in Palestine. The label “refugee” includes all of the Palestinians who left Palestine in 1948, including their children and grandchildren, now totalling 5.4 million people according to UNRWA statistics. The US administration regards this as one of the major obstacles to peace between the Palestinians and Israel.
Cutting aid was the first step towards ending the refugee issue, which is the most complicated one on the negotiating table, and thus at a stroke eliminate the “right of return”. Kushner is Trump’s Zionist son-in-law and advisor; he is tasked with closing down UNRWA and stripping the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip of refugee status so that the Americans can say that there are only 500,000 refugees instead of 5.4 million.
This is where the idea of resettling Palestinian refugees in neighbouring Arab countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, originated, although it is actually an old idea from the 1950s which was completely rejected by the Arab governments in order to preserve Palestinian identity. As such, they did not grant the Palestinians citizenship of the countries in which they sought refuge; they are guests in the host countries, keeping the right of return valid. The Arab League made this decision when it was still a serious body.
We cannot separate any of this from the Nation State Law passed by Israel last year, with which it exposed its ugly racism. This law makes Palestine a land solely for the Jewish people and Hebrew the only official language in the country. The law also makes the Arabs an official minority and imposes on Palestinians the inevitability of accepting either to leave the state or agree to be second class citizens who do not have the right to demand equal rights.
This further establishes the major lies promoted by the Zionists for a century that Palestine is the land of the Jewish people only; that it is the Promised Land granted to them by God; that the Palestinian presence in the country is an occupation; and that the war in 1948 was a war to liberate the land from the Palestinian “occupiers”.
The Zionists also claim that the land on which they are building settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank is not “occupied”, but simply part of the expansion of the Jewish homeland. That is why the Nation State Law says that, “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation” and that immigration leading to immediate citizenship is granted only to the Jewish people in an effort to end the right of return issue permanently.
The only goal behind the Bahrain workshop remains to perpetuate the Zionist occupation in the Palestinian territories and the loss of Palestinian rights, which no Palestinian or free-minded Arab will accept. There is no way that the Palestinians would choose the economy over their national project and right to establish an independent state. In fact, the political aspect of any peace deal should come before the economic part, and from that should emerge the investments and economic projects for Palestinian citizens. This is what the US does not understand. It believes that the Palestinians will rejoice at economic incentives as an alternative to an independent state that they have for so long demanded as a condition for any sustainable peace negotiations with the Israelis.
The Bahrain workshop of betrayal became a quagmire of shame and disgrace from which it will never emerge, as were all of the shameful conferences that were held before it to normalise relations with the Israeli enemy. They are all destined for the dustbin of history; Trump’s “deal of the century” will not pass unchallenged. The Arab nation still has a pulse and it refuses to concede historic Palestine as long as the resistance in Gaza bares its teeth and does not bargain or concede the land. Peace will not be achieved without the Palestinians receiving all of their rights and establishing a free and independent state.
~Middle East Monitor/Days of Palestine
6 july 2019
An exiled academic and political dissident says Saudi authorities have launched a new arrest campaign against Palestinian expatriates living in the conservative kingdom.
“There is an intensified campaign to arrest more Palestinians living in the kingdom, with the same charges that have so far been leveled against some 60 Palestinians. The arrest campaign will involve a number of Egyptian citizens,” Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi wrote in a post published on his official Twitter page on Saturday.
Ghamdi added that Saudi officials have recently released 20 Palestinian and Egyptian women, whom they had arrested during the Hajj pilgrimage last year on charges of affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood.
He added that the women were being kept in Dhahban Central Prison near the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. They have apparently been warned not to talk about their detention situation.
Prisoners of Conscience, which is an independent non-governmental organization seeking to promote human rights in Saudi Arabia, announced in a series of posts on its official Twitter page on June 11 that more than 150 Palestinians were languishing in Saudi detention centers. Some 40 Palestinians were arrested in Jeddah alone.
The rights group added that Saudi intelligence agents had committed rights abuses against Palestinians during and after their arrest.
Arabic-language al-Khaleej Online news website reported last month that Saudi officials had blocked money transfers between the kingdom and the Gaza Strip.
The report described residents of the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip as the main victims of the move. Most of the bank transfers that used to be carried out normally in the past were frozen just a few days before the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Remittance transactions are taking much longer than usual – something that used to be done in a matter of few hours.
Many Palestinians have complained of the move, and termed it as “unprecedented.” They argue that the process of transferring money between Saudi Arabia and the Gaza Strip has become extraordinarily difficult.
Over the past two years, Saudi authorities have deported more than 100 Palestinians from the kingdom, mostly on charges of supporting the Hamas resistance movement financially, politically or through social networking sites.
The Riyadh regime has imposed strict control over Palestinian funds in Saudi Arabia since the end of 2017.
All remittances of Palestinian expatriates are being tightly controlled, fearing that these funds could be diverted indirectly and through other countries to Hamas.
Money transfer offices are asking the Palestinians to bring forward strong arguments for conversion, and do not allow the ceiling of one’s money transfer to exceed $3,000.
“There is an intensified campaign to arrest more Palestinians living in the kingdom, with the same charges that have so far been leveled against some 60 Palestinians. The arrest campaign will involve a number of Egyptian citizens,” Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi wrote in a post published on his official Twitter page on Saturday.
Ghamdi added that Saudi officials have recently released 20 Palestinian and Egyptian women, whom they had arrested during the Hajj pilgrimage last year on charges of affiliation to the Muslim Brotherhood.
He added that the women were being kept in Dhahban Central Prison near the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. They have apparently been warned not to talk about their detention situation.
Prisoners of Conscience, which is an independent non-governmental organization seeking to promote human rights in Saudi Arabia, announced in a series of posts on its official Twitter page on June 11 that more than 150 Palestinians were languishing in Saudi detention centers. Some 40 Palestinians were arrested in Jeddah alone.
The rights group added that Saudi intelligence agents had committed rights abuses against Palestinians during and after their arrest.
Arabic-language al-Khaleej Online news website reported last month that Saudi officials had blocked money transfers between the kingdom and the Gaza Strip.
The report described residents of the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip as the main victims of the move. Most of the bank transfers that used to be carried out normally in the past were frozen just a few days before the start of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Remittance transactions are taking much longer than usual – something that used to be done in a matter of few hours.
Many Palestinians have complained of the move, and termed it as “unprecedented.” They argue that the process of transferring money between Saudi Arabia and the Gaza Strip has become extraordinarily difficult.
Over the past two years, Saudi authorities have deported more than 100 Palestinians from the kingdom, mostly on charges of supporting the Hamas resistance movement financially, politically or through social networking sites.
The Riyadh regime has imposed strict control over Palestinian funds in Saudi Arabia since the end of 2017.
All remittances of Palestinian expatriates are being tightly controlled, fearing that these funds could be diverted indirectly and through other countries to Hamas.
Money transfer offices are asking the Palestinians to bring forward strong arguments for conversion, and do not allow the ceiling of one’s money transfer to exceed $3,000.