One of Jamal Khashoggi's Last Columns

This is another transcription of an article in Pier 22, an online periodical I follow, using a blogger translation. The language may seem unnatural but the meanings and implications are unmistakable. I linked a few names and sources for clarity. My own reflections are at the end.

Avoid prison as much as you can ... for freedom, imprisonment and depression

Jamal Khashoggi

10.06.2018

After two long days at the Oslo Freedom Forum in the Norwegian capital, last week, amidst a hotter heat than the southern world where most of the "wretched" participants came from, I asked myself as I listened to their words and stories with the freedom battle in Togo, Cambodia, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Yemen, Iran, Libya, and Egypt ... Does what I hear reinforce my faith in freedom or call for depression?

My conclusion is the second possibility. The frustrating here is not only the repetition and similarity of the stories, as if the tyrants were settling in from one poisoned well, but the indifference of the world. The US State Department publishes a report on human rights every year, and another on the state of religious freedom around the world. The last one was released last week, and its information is no less accurate than what independent human rights organizations say, but it is no longer doing anything. Only a few penalties and thresholds. The issue of rights has been solved. She remembers Iran's violations and expects the maximum sanctions and forgets Egypt and Zimbabwe.

What if Bernie Sanders, a left-wing Congressman and jurist who is like former President of Tunisia and current rival Moncef Marzouki, won the last US presidential election instead of Donald Trump? Would he raise the banner of rights? Or will the CIA chief remind him that this slogan "will weaken our allies in the region"? Will the importance of achieving the interests of oil companies and weapons be replaced by the priority of human rights? Can tyrants resist America's big hand? Perhaps they will then use their absent peoples and turn their books into fighters to stand up to the new American imperialist onslaught. A scenario suitable for the story of a virtual world, not a political article or a session at the next Oslo Forum.

I felt especially sorry for Leyla Younis, the Azerbaijani fighter who looked to me more like a good grandmother who deserves to retire and spend a good time on her beloved nest and around her grandchildren to tell her tales and jokes in her home in the capital of her oil-rich country. nothing new. So are the republics of our world. I discovered during the forum that the inheritance of power is common in Africa as well as in Latin America, without forgetting the North Korean Republic inherited by a father and grandson, even though it is "democratic communism"!

Leila left the theater after she had exhausted her touching words. Do not forget human rights in Azerbaijan. " Would anyone but rights organizations care?

I do not know why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan jumped to my head as he celebrated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev before I thought of others who deal day and night with him and with the rest of the tyrants of the world. Perhaps to the interrelationship between the two countries. It is the interests that make Erdogan care about human rights in Egypt and ignore them in Azerbaijan, the same interests that make thousands, but millions of Arab refugees claim that Erdogan will win the next elections and not interested in about 50,000 Turks detained since the failed coup attempt more than a year ago. They have a haven to turn to if Erdogan and his party lose. Opposition candidate Miral Akchnar frightens them by saying that they will return the Syrians to their homeland if they win the presidency, the homeland ruled by their murderer!

This paradox between Azerbaijan and Erdogan has been used to explain how interests and pragmatism overwhelm human rights issues, regardless of their fairness, a reality that is now recognized by those who have spent time in the field of opposition and rights.

Many have abandoned the expectation of immediate results and are working in the long run on the method of "planting a tree for those who will come after you to shade or build up an arch and gang." Their interest in political struggle has been reduced and they are spreading education, self-education, democratic values, Above the constitutional, "a term I first heard in Egypt in 2012, a number of jurists and liberalists raised the fears of the Islamists, opposed by the brothers who were more faith in the strength of the Fund. It seems now that even the owners of the "constitutional principles" no longer believe in them, as they quickly collapsed and joined the coup, with no respectable constitution, no fund, let alone "supra-constitutional principles."

Leyla Younis

Before Leyla Younis was deposed, I must mention some of her story. In 2014, Azerbaijan won the hosting of the European Games. Leila protested, and "scoffed" at the granting of this honor by the "free" European countries. The next day, she was arrested and charged with treason and stabbed her in the back. The state presented its position that it was against the homeland and not against the government. She certainly loves her country, but she does not like the government. Who explains this to the leader and his media, which promotes the concept of "I am the homeland, and the homeland I"? She's perfect. Long live her leadership of the Institute of Peace and Democracy, which calls for the rule of law to be its homeland for its people, not a dictator who governs a people who betrayed him with praise, people who do not see a homeland without the leader.

Laila ended up in jail despite her advanced age, and her husband, Aref, was also right. Her health collapsed in the prison and she and her husband were released after a year and a half. Now living a refugee in the Netherlands. I almost hear a citizen praising his leader day and night or being defeated from within saying, "What did you benefit?" Someday, Azri will say of a free homeland, not ruled by Aliyev, the son or grandson, and we enjoy our freedom thanks to Leyla Younis.

The last idea moves the testosterone, and re-optimizes, but the overall forum is depressing. I found out that I was not the only one suffering from distress. I always thought of it because of the loss of my country. I found out during a subsequent lecture that 19 percent of human rights activists suffer from PTSD. And is trying to develop medicines and treatment programs for this disease, which prompts some to think about suicide or isolation and even drugs. The politician does not realize the extent to which the writer, the imam of the mosque, the journalist, the intellectual, the economic person are harmed by the "son of the people" when he is thrown in prison for no reason, just to intimidate the rest of the people, even in solitary confinement for two or three months. It would be a nightmare to pursue even if he was not severely tortured when he was out of prison.

One of those who passed this experience told me that he had thought of committing suicide twice. He is busy with people or in a bus and he is transported by the "flashback" to the cell and the feelings of despair, loneliness and fear he has experienced.

I remembered a journalist colleague who had now settled in Washington and had experienced prison. She hardly leaves her home even though she is safe now. I did not understand why. Maybe she was wrong and I thought she was exaggerating, she was saying to me: "I cannot do anything, I'm still there." I understand her situation better now, and more on her, after I sat with Rick Doblin, who leads a non-profit organization to provide treatment for these. Tell me about the coping difficulties they are living amid the lack of understanding and conviction around them.

My narrowness of the "narrowness" I woke up sometimes, after I chose the alienation and the safety away from home, compared to what I had heard about the suffering of others who had experienced the prison, but increased my anger at those who are cured of their "colleagues" and their lucky citizens who ended up oppressed A dismal prison. [This paragraph needs a better translation.]

The hardest thing is to jail without reason. The intellectual is not a criminal, so he is always unprepared for imprisonment. A friend of mine called me and ended up in prison last September after being allowed to visit him. "He broke him in solitary confinement, you do not know him when you meet him," he told me.

Did you not do this, O leader, your best people? Someday, she will order the release of my friend and his companion, they will free themselves with their bodies, but some of them will remain in prison, followed by that enormous temporal void. I feel selfish when I write now. "Thank God I did not go to jail." I know how they live in prison now. I know how much deprivation and pain their people live in, and the fear that lies on those around them who are free with their bodies and detained with their lives and aspirations.

We are in a time when prison is part of the tools of governance and control of the "public." No longer in need of law and regulations. Became a weapon in the hands of the leader and his party and his army and his ruling class. Therefore, I hope that the Islamic movements, especially the glorification of the prison and its experience, will stop. Do not seek the poem of Sayyid Qutb, "My brother, you are free from restrictions" in your private closed sessions, if you dare to hold them until now. Look for a formula for the opposition that does not lead to prisons and confrontation. I know this is easy to say, and difficult to do. Prison in our world is not always punitive or prudent. It is part of political negotiation, lobbying, and public control skills.

Any political movement that tolerates decisions that bring its youth to prison is irresponsible, as are opponents of the outside, who incite from inside to anger, move and harass the ruler. So I always say to the youth in my country: Do not listen to them and avoid prison as much as you can, all you will get is a speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a great deal of depression.

Platform 22 An independent media platform that addresses millions of readers in Arabic through an innovative approach to everyday life in our world, keen to respect the local customs and traditions of the peoples of the region. Quay 22 is connected to the pulse of the Arab street and raises issues concerning its 22 states. The principles of democracy are at the core of his editorial plan, which is supervised by an independent, critical but constructive team that has its positions on the region's affairs, but is far from the existing political rapprochement. Platform 22 is a platform designed to simulate the new citizen. Arts, culture, investment, industry, economics, politics, justice, equality, travel, education, and accepting the other, with a background that always revolves around respect for citizenship and social justice. Platform 22 is a media outlet designed to create a sense of common future among the citizens of the Arab world, but away from the discourse of Arab nationalism. The site keeps abreast of the change taking place in the region and attempts to explain it by revealing the commonalities among the 22 Arab countries, their strengths and weaknesses, their problems and their aspirations. Quay 22 is a publication of Levant Laboratories SA, BVI (Mashreq Laboratories). Further, Download the brochure on Pier 22

Miral Akchnar

Jamal Khashoggi was on staff at Pier 22. Prior to his murder I didn't know Khashoggi's name or reputation. I have no way to know, but as a layman blogging in retirement, my guess is that when he mentioned Miral Akchnar, the Turkish opposition leader, he struck a nerve with Erdogan. Why do I think he was not killed in Turkey by chance? Why not some other country? Why do I wonder if MbS was set up? His hit squad apparently came and departed without a problem -- except for a recording device that enshrined their diabolical mission for the record. And who orchestrated the release of that record -- slowly, slowly -- in a way designed to torpedo the Prince, his Davos-in-the-Desert dream, his credibility and his American partners in criminal activity, the American president and a boatload of his cronies?
Take another look at the part of this column where he says "I do not know why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan jumped to my head..."
Tell me I'm imagining things.

Turkey's opposition opposition party leader Miral Akchnar is due to resign after an emergency meeting of the party after growing criticism of her performance in the election. 

Akchnar - formerly an interior minister and deputy to the nationalist party - the Good Party - was founded last year after she broke away from the nationalist party that backs President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party. 

Akchnar was seen ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections last month as Erdogan's biggest and most credible challenge before he pulled the rug from under its feet Muharram Engha, the main opposition candidate. After a two-day gathering of party officials to assess the election results, Akchnar on Sunday called for an emergency conference in which the good party would elect a new leader.