CNN
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The Biden administration has decided that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, needs to be granted immunity in a case brought towards him by the fiancée of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom the administration has stated was murdered at the prince’s direction.

A courtroom submitting was made by Justice Department attorneys on the request of the State Department as a result of bin Salman was not too long ago made the Saudi prime minister and consequently, qualifies for immunity as a international head of presidency, the request stated. It was filed late Thursday night time, simply earlier than the courtroom’s deadline for the Justice Department to present its views in courtroom on the immunity query and different arguments the prince made for having the lawsuit dismissed.

“Mohammed bin Salman, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is the sitting head of government and, accordingly, is immune from this suit,” the submitting reads, whereas calling the homicide “heinous.”

The choice is prone to provoke an indignant response. The White House had hoped the July journey by President Joe Biden to Saudi Arabia would get the rocky US-Saudi relationship again on monitor however since then, relations have solely continued to bitter.

The relationship is being reevaluated, the White House has stated, in the wake of an oil manufacturing minimize by Saudi-led OPEC+ that the administration noticed as a direct affront to the US. Members of Congress, already infuriated by the oil minimize and calling for a reevaluation, will doubtless solely be angered additional if the prince is given immunity.

Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée, and the Washington-based human rights group that the late journalist based, DAWN, initially brought the lawsuit towards bin Salman and 28 others in October 2020 in the Washington, DC, Federal District Court. They allege that the workforce of assassins “kidnapped, bound, drugged, tortured, and assassinated” Khashoggi on the Saudi consulate in Istanbul after which dismembered his physique. His stays have by no means been discovered.

“Biden himself betrayed his word, betrayed Jamal,” Cengiz informed CNN. “History will not forget this wrong decision.”

Cengiz additionally tweeted, “Biden saved the murderer by granting immunity. He saved the criminal and got involved in the crime himself. Let’s see who will save you in the hereafter?”

The govt director of DAWN, Sarah Leah Whitson, known as the immunity request a “shocking outcome” and a “massive concession” to Saudi Arabia.

“It’s really beyond ironic that President Biden has basically delivered an assurance of impunity for Mohammed bin Salman, which is the exact opposite of what he promised to do to hold the killers of Jamal Khashoggi accountable,” Whitson informed CNN.

A US intelligence community report into Khashoggi’s homicide printed in February 2021 as Biden took workplace stated bin Salman permitted the operation to seize or kill the journalist which ended along with his homicide and dismemberment.

Bin Salman denied the allegations and sought immunity from prosecution, claiming that his varied authorities and royal positions gave him immunity and put him outdoors the US courts’ jurisdiction.

But as Crown Prince, bin Salman was not entitled to sovereign immunity which might usually simply embrace a head of state, head of presidency or international minister, none of which bin Salman was.

Then, only a few days earlier than the Biden administration was alleged to weigh in final month on the query of immunity, bin Salman was promoted to prime minister by his father, King Salman, who would usually maintain that place.

That was a “ploy” to safe so-called head of state immunity, DAWN’s Whitson stated, after which the Justice Department requested for a delay.

Now that bin Salman is prime minister, “the government ought to recommend that he’s entitled to immunity” stated regulation professor William Dodge on the University of California Davis Law School, who had beforehand written that the prince wasn’t entitled to immunity.

“It’s almost automatic,” Dodge stated, “I think that’s why he was appointed prime minister is to get out of this.”

The State Department was not required to make a dedication of immunity however was invited to take action by the courtroom. A spokesperson stated that their request that bin Salman be granted immunity is primarily based on longstanding frequent and worldwide regulation, relatively than a mirrored image of present diplomatic ties or efforts.

“This Suggestion of Immunity does not reflect an assessment on the merits of the case. It speaks to nothing on broader policy or the state of relations,” a division spokesperson informed CNN. “This was purely a legal determination.”

The Saudi embassy in Washington, DC, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Bin Salman had additionally claimed immunity in a case against him by former Saudi counterterrorism official Saad Aljabri, who accused the prince of sending a success squad to kill him in Canada simply days after Khashoggi’s homicide. That case was dismissed for different causes by the identical courtroom.

“After breaking its pledge to punish MBS for Khashoggi’s assassination, the Biden administration has not only shielded MBS from accountability in US courts, but effectively issued him license to kill more detractors and declared that he would never be held accountable,” Aljabri’s son, Khalid, informed CNN on Thursday.

The White House was extensively criticized for Biden’s journey to Saudi Arabia in July, when the president awkwardly fist-bumped the crown prince he stated he nonetheless holds accountable for Khashoggi’s homicide.

Biden stated he raised the killing firstly of their assembly and that the prince continued to disclaim being accountable.

“I was straightforward and direct in discussing it. I made my view crystal clear,” stated Biden.

The four-page US intelligence group report launched in 2021 stated that the 15-person Saudi workforce that arrived in Istanbul in October 2018 when Khashoggi was killed included members related to the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs (CSMARC) on the Royal Court, led by an in depth adviser of bin Salman, in addition to “seven members of Muhammad bin Salman’s elite personal protective detail, known as the Rapid Intervention Force.”

The report famous that bin Salman seen Khashoggi as a risk to the Kingdom “and broadly supported using violent measures if necessary, to silence him.”

The intelligence report stated that they didn’t have visibility on when the Saudis had determined to hurt the daddy of 5. “Although Saudi officials had pre-planned an unspecified operation against Khashoggi we do not know how far in advance Saudi officials decided to harm him,” it stated.

Last month, on the fourth anniversary of Khashoggi’s demise, DAWN demanded the Biden administration declassify and publish the complete intelligence report on his killing.

Khashoggi’s fiancée Cengiz alleges that when Khashoggi tried to get the papers they wanted to get married on the embassy in Washington, DC, officers “manufactured an opportunity to murder him.”

They informed him the one place he might get the paperwork they wanted was on the consulate in Istanbul, she stated. Two weeks earlier than his appointment on October 2, 2018, the day he was killed, Khashoggi and Cengiz had been married in a non secular Islamic ceremony, the lawsuit says.

“The Administration’s decision to encourage courts to uphold MBS’ sovereign immunity is yet another disappointing chapter in a series of failures to hold Saudi leadership accountable for brutally murdering Jamal Khashoggi,” a senior congressional Democratic aide stated. “Actions such as this contradict the Administration’s hollow assurances of accountability and fly in the face of our own intelligence assessments of MBS’ involvement.”

Editor’s Note: A model of this story first appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile within the Middle East publication, a three-times-a-week look contained in the area’s largest tales. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
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A weeping Iranian lady is seen kneeling by her useless brother’s coffin as she slashes through her hair with a pair of scissors. Her kin wail for justice as she tosses strands onto the coffin.

They have been grieving for 36-year-old Javad Heydari, who was fatally shot final week at one of many anti-government protests which have gripped Iran.

Images like these have galvanized women internationally to hitch Iranian women protesting the dying of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She died in hospital on September 16, three days after being pulled off the streets of Tehran by morality police and brought to a “re-education center” for classes in modesty.

From the Middle East, Europe and across the United States, women across the globe have proven solidarity with Iranian women’s plight in rallies and demonstrations. Some have additionally minimize or shaved their hair in public or whereas being filmed.

Now in their twelfth day, protests have swept through greater than 40 Iranian cities, together with the capital Tehran. Iranian safety forces have been cracking down on protesters, with a whole lot arrested and not less than 41 killed, in keeping with state media. Some human rights organizations say the dying toll is as excessive as 76. CNN can’t independently confirm these figures.

So, why are women cutting their hair?

For many Iranian women, cutting off hair – an indication of magnificence that’s decreed to be hidden within the Islamic Republic – is a poignant type of protest.

“We want to show them that we don’t care about their standards, their definition of beauty or what they think that we should look like,” stated 36-year-old Faezeh Afshan, an Iranian chemical engineer dwelling in Bologna, Italy, who was filmed shaving off her hair. “It is to show that we are angry.”

Afshan attributes the apply of cutting off hair to historic cultural practices. “In our literature, cutting the hair is a symbol of mourning, and sometimes a symbol of protesting,” she advised CNN. “If we can cut our hair to show that we are angry… we will do it.”

The apply is cited in Shahnameh, a 1,000-year-old Persian epic and a cultural mainstay in Iran written by Ferdowsi. Made of practically 60,000 verses, the poem tells the tales of the kings of Persia and is without doubt one of the most vital works of literature within the Persian language. In a couple of occasion via the epic work, hair is plucked in an act of mourning.

“Women cutting their hair is an ancient Persian tradition… when the fury is stronger than the power of the oppressor,” tweeted Wales-based author and translator Shara Atashi. “The moment we have been waiting for has come. Politics fueled by poetry.”

In the Shahnameh, after the hero Siyavash is killed, his spouse Farangis and the women accompanying her minimize their hair to protest injustice, Atashi advised CNN.

The characters portrayed within the poem “are in everyday use as symbols and archetypes,” she stated, including that the poem has helped form the identities of Iranians, Afghans and Tajiks for 1,000 years.

“But there is haircutting in the poetry of Hafez and Khaqani too, always about mourning and protests against injustice,” she stated, referring to different Persian poets.

The apply can also be widespread in different historic cultures. The Epic of Gilgamesh, a 3,500-year-old poem from historic Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) covers themes of grief and despair, the place cutting or pulling out one’s hair is used to specific anguish. The poem is taken into account to be one of many world’s oldest works of literature and is claimed to have influenced neighboring cultures.

Shima Babaei, an Iranian activist residing in Belgium who stated she was arrested by Iran’s infamous morality police in 2018 for publicly eradicating her hijab as an indication of protest, advised CNN that hair cutting had “historical meaning” for Iranians. Women who lose a direct relative would generally minimize their hair as an indication of mourning and anger, she stated.

“For us, Mahsa was our sister,” she stated. “And so, in this way, we are protesting.”

Cutting hair, stated Atashi, “is itself a ceremony of mourning to better expose the depth of suffering at the loss of a loved one.” And in in the present day’s context, she provides, it’s a signal of “protest against the killing of our people.”

Saudi king names MBS as prime minister

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz has named his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (often known as MBS) as the dominion’s prime minister and one other son Prince Khalid as protection minister, in keeping with Saudi state media.

Turkey summons German envoy after politician likens Erdogan to ‘sewer rat’

Turkey’s overseas ministry summoned the German ambassador to Ankara on Tuesday to protest feedback made by a senior German politician who likened President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to a “little sewer rat,” Reuters reported. “We condemn in the strongest terms the insulting statements made by Wolfgang Kubicki, the vice-speaker of the German Federal Parliament, about our president in a speech during the Lower Saxony state election campaign,” Turkish overseas ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic stated in a press release.

At least 4 Palestinians killed, dozens wounded in considered one of this yr’s deadliest Israeli West Bank raids

At least four Palestinian men have been killed and 50 wounded throughout an Israeli navy raid in Jenin Wednesday morning, Palestinian officers stated, making it one of many deadliest Israeli raids within the occupied West Bank this yr, which has already seen over 100 Palestinians killed by Israeli troopers. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated the raid was associated to an assault in Tel Aviv in April which left three individuals useless, and that the suspects Wednesday fought again with explosives and gunfire.

Henna, a reddish-brown dye famously used for physique artwork in lots of components of the Middle East, could also be making its approach to becoming a member of the UNESCO checklist of intangible cultural heritage.

In the method of being nominated by the UAE and the Arab League, henna has lengthy been a part of Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian heritage and identification.

Dating again 1000’s of years, the non permanent dye is used to create elaborate designs primarily on one’s fingers, typically for non secular festivals and celebrations.

Representatives from 16 Arab nations met this month to debate the nomination, in keeping with the Abu Dhabi authorities media workplace, stressing that henna performs an vital position in Arab and Gulf tradition and identification.

UNESCO’s checklist of intangible cultural heritage contains each inherited in addition to fashionable traditions, and is supposed to advertise practices that contribute to “social cohesion” and encourage a shared sense of identification.

The checklist contains practices equivalent to falconry, yoga, and Arabic calligraphy.

By Nadeen Ebrahim