Saudi exiles defy royal family with pro-democracy opposition groups

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump, at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka

Credit: Reuters

A daring new political party founded by exiled Saudi activists is challenging the Kingdom’s rulers with a campaign to bring free speech and democracy to the ultra-conservative Gulf state.

The National Assembly Party, founded by a band of Saudi artists, scholars and dissidents, has called for an end to political repression in the Kingdom and hopes to become Saudi Arabia’s de facto opposition.

Professor Madawi al-Rasheed, the party’s London-based spokeswoman, said the number of Saudi dissidents living abroad has reached a “critical mass” and that the group now plans to unite them as a pro-democracy movement.

“This party builds on the active will of a generation of Saudis who have called for political and civil reform, rather than cosmetic reform,” she told the Telegraph.

It came as a similar group led by friends and allies of the slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was officially launched in Washington on Tuesday, ahead of the second anniversary of his death on October 2.

Created by Khashoggi shortly before his death, Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) has the broader goal of fostering democratic values across the Middle East and North Africa.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents inside the Kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in 2018. A passionate advocate of reforming Saudi society, he was a vocal critic of Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and de facto ruler.

The Crown Prince has faced repeated accusations that he ordered the killing, though he vehemently denies this and insists it was carried out by rogue operatives. Earlier this year a Saudi court jailed eight people for their role in the murder but did not identify them.

One of the groups, DAWN, will honour the legacy of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Credit: Reuters

Sarah Leah Whitson, Dawn’s executive director, said they would realise Khashoggi’s dream of giving a voice to the “thousands of political exiles like Jamal, who demand democracy and human rights as the only way to ensure peace.”

According to Saudi Arabia’s own estimates, the number of exiled citizens is expected to exceed 50,000 by 2030, while the UN’s refugee agency says Saudi asylum applications tripled between 2012 and 2017.  

Professor Rasheed added that her National Assembly’s key ambitions were to bring democracy, elections, a parliamentary system and free speech to the country. Political parties are banned in Saudi Arabia under its Basic Law and those who challenge the Kingdom’s leadership risk long jail sentences.

In its mission statement, the National Assembly Party’s founders stress that they bear “no personal animosity with the ruling family," in what appears to be an attempt to avoid reprisals from Riyadh.

Among the founders is Yahya Assiri, a 40-year-old human rights activist and former Royal Saudi Air Force member who was granted asylum in the UK in 2017.

Both opposition groups are likely to draw strong disapproval from the Crown Prince, who recently launched a crackdown on perceived rivals inside the Kingdom.

Tensions in the Saudi royal family have simmered since March, when there were reports that the Crown Prince had arrested at least three members of the Saudi royal family, supposedly as they were plotting a coup against him. 

There are also rumours of a rift between the Crown Prince and 84-year-old King Salman as to whether the Kingdom should follow the United Emirates and Bahrain in normalising ties with Israel.

Prof Rasheed said the risk of yet more turmoil in the royal palace had galvanised her fellow dissidents to launch the National Assembly on September 23, Saudi National Day.

“There is a looming power struggle that may lead to serious upheaval in Saudi Arabia and this is between members of the royal family,” she said.

“It is Saudi society that will pay the price for any agitation at the top of the ladder. To mitigate against these conditions that may send the country down a difficult and violent path, we thought we would provide an alternative platform and vision," she added.