The United States has announced an entry ban for foreigners who threaten dissidents and journalists

The United States will ban the entry of those who threaten dissidents into their country and has announced sanctions against 76 Saudis linked to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“We have made it clear that Saudi Arabia’s extraterritorial threats and attacks on activists, dissidents and journalists must stop. They will not be tolerated by the United States ”, Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, said Friday.

In a fact sheet sent to US lawmakers, the US State Department explained that it was announcing a new “Khashoggi policy” for “Impose visa restrictions on persons who, acting on behalf of a foreign government, have directly participated in serious and extraterritorial activities against dissidents”.

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohamed bin Salman, is not among the 76 punished this Friday by the US Treasury. But if Saudi General Ahmed al-Asiri, the kingdom’s former intelligence chief, and the Saudi Rapid Intervention Forces were punished for their role in the assassination. from the correspondent of the American newspaper The Washington Post in 2018.

On Friday, the United States declassified an explosive intelligence report that revealed Saudi Prince Mohamed bin Salman authorized the “capture or kill” of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The prince – King Salman’s heir and the kingdom’s de facto ruler – “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”

Khashoggi was a journalist critical of the kingdom who moved to the United States after falling out of favor with the crown prince. In October 2018, he entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to apply for a certificate to marry his fiancee. According to Turkish authorities, he was assassinated at diplomatic headquarters on October 2 by a squad of 15 Saudis who first strangled him and then dismembered his body. His remains have never been found.

The report from two years ago was partially released on Friday by President Joe Biden’s government. The report states that Given the influence of the crown prince, it is “highly unlikely” that the journalist’s murder happened without his green light. “The crown prince sees Khashoggi as a threat to the kingdom and has generally supported the use of violent measures to silence him,” the report said.

Until the Saudi kingdom has denied any responsibility in the factAlthough he admitted the journalist’s death at the Istanbul consulate, which he attributed to rebel intelligence agents. In this way, the kingdom then tried and sentenced to death several of these suspected agents, then commuted their sentences to life imprisonment.

With information from AFP

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