Today on the homepage, I complete my notes on the Oslo Freedom Forum, which took place last week. I write of many personalities, and situations, and ideas. It was interesting and inspiring to meet two young women from Rwanda: Carine and Anaïse Kanimba. They are sisters. Their father, Paul Rusesabagina, is a political prisoner, and his daughters are doing everything they can to help him.
You may remember Hotel Rwanda, the movie from 2004. It was about the Rwandan genocide. The main character was Rusesabagina, known as “the hotel manager.” It was he who saved more than a thousand people from the genocide. President George W. Bush met with him in the Oval Office early in 2005. Later in the year, he awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Now Rusesabagina is a prisoner of that ghastly regime in Rwanda.
His daughters, incidentally, are adopted. Their parents were murdered in the genocide. Carine and Anaïse seem to me joyous personalities, though about a deadly serious business.
It is a common thing: family members trying to help other family members who are imprisoned and subjected to torture. I have met and interviewed daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers . . . Last week, I met and interviewed Areej al-Sadhan. For our podcast — our Q&A — go here. Her brother, Abdulrahman, is a political prisoner in Saudi Arabia.
There are three siblings in the family. They grew up between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Abdulrahman went to Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, Calif. In late 2014, he went to Saudi Arabia, to begin a career. He wanted to be part of a “new” Saudi Arabia — a freer, more open one. He thought he had contributions to make. A caring, compassionate sort, he went to work for the Red Crescent, as the Red Cross is known in Muslim-majority countries.
On Twitter, he made some criticisms of the government — anonymously. He is for freedom, democracy, and human rights. The government is not, obviously. Abdulrahman’s identity was uncovered — along with those of many others — and he was seized from his office on March 12, 2018. He was then “disappeared.” His family did not hear from him for two whole years. But they received reports, from relatives of other prisoners.
Abdulrahman was being tortured. By what means? Electric shocks, beatings, suspension by feet — the usual repertoire. Agents smashed Abdulrahman’s hand, saying, “So this is the one you tweet with?”
In a secret and sham trial, in April 2021, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan was sentenced to 20 years in prison, to be followed by a 20-year travel ban. They want him never, ever to tell his stories. This is a sick and cruel dictatorship. They may call themselves “kings” and “queens” and “princes” and all that crap, but it’s just another sadistic dictatorship.
At first, the Sadhan family was hesitant to be “public,” preferring to inquire as to Abdulrahman’s whereabouts and condition through private channels. But these were unavailing. Areej was jolted by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. If they could murder a prominent journalist in a consulate on foreign soil, what could they do with ordinary Saudis in their own prisons?
Areej went public in a simple tweet: “Where is my brother?” Since then, she has been harassed and threatened by Saudi agents. She is a brave woman, in addition to a loyal sister.
To many in the West, Mohammed bin Salman is known as a liberal reformer. To families such as the Sadhans, this is an Orwellian lie. I think of the various Americans in bed with the Saudis, making money off them: the golfers; Jared Kushner; all sorts of people. Couldn’t they make their money another way, with other people? On this same theme: Did Elon Musk, with all his billions, really need to open a new showroom and office in the Xinjiang region, where the Uyghurs have been herded into camps?
The first trip abroad that Donald Trump took as president was to Saudi Arabia. When he landed, he said, “We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship.” That is music to dictators’ ears. It tells them to do with their subjects whatever they wish. Go ahead: Torture them in peace. No one will bother you or even mention it. In the mind of a dictator, it is his job to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, how to worship . . .
In this fallen, wicked world, democracies have to have relations with a variety of nasty regimes. But when you are dealing with them, don’t forget the boys in the camps. That is an admonition from Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet-era dissident. As you go about your business, doing the necessary, pause now and then to ask yourself: How will it look to the boys in the camps? There are many, many people such as Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, who do not deserve to be forgotten.