A Saudi spokesman goes after visiting the consulate, arousing fear and confusion: NPR

The disappearance of a declared Saudi critic, who was last seen in a Saudi consulate in Turkey, has left activists, foreign officials and friends fear for his safety.

Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee told the media that she was waiting hours before Khashoggi emerged from the Istanbul consulate. He was there to fill out papers so that both could be married.

"If the Saudi authorities surreptitiously arrest Khashoggi, the reign of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman's repression against dissidents and peaceful critics would be another escalation," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, on Thursday. She added that "the burden of proof lies with Saudi Arabia" to prove that the journalist left the consulate in peace.

Human Rights Watch has urged the Turkish authorities to take steps to prevent Saudi agents from forcibly returning Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, where an unfair trial could be expected.

Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters on Wednesday that the journalist was still inside the building – which directly contradicts the Saudi government, which reportedly left the scene.

Khashoggi's fiancée refuted Saudi Arabia's claims to Reuters. "If that was true, where is he, where is he?"

A State Department official told NPR on Thursday: "We are closely following reports of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and we continue to search for information."

A Saudi embassy official in Washington, DC, told Jackie Northam of NPR that Khashoggi was neither at the consulate nor in detention.

While the mystery persisted, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the Saudi Arabian ambassador "for an explanation," the media reported.

Last year, following arrests of arrests, Khashoggi left Saudi Arabia to travel to Washington, DC, and was living in a self-imposed exile. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post in September 2017, he wrote: "I left my home, my family and my job, and raised my voice, otherwise I would betray those who languish in prison, I can speak when many can not." not."

Once a friend of the royal family, Khashoggi became one of his most virulent critics. He denounced the repressive tactics of the authorities against dissidents, businessmen, activists and religious.

He interviewed Osama bin Laden and criticized the religious elite while editing Saudi's leading newspaper Al Watan, Reported Al Jazeera.

One day before entering the consulate, he confided to a friend that he feared being kidnapped and sent back to Saudi Arabia, according to the New York Times.

The president of the Turkish-Arab Media Association, of which Khashoggi is a member, told the Time The Turkish security agents at the consulate checked the images of the surveillance camera and did not see the journalist coming out. At the same time, diplomatic cars were seen coming and going from the consulate.

The Washington Post reported that the newspaper had received no news of Khashoggi since entering the Saudi Arabian consulate. The newspaper staff contacted Saudi and Turkish officials in search of his fate.

His disappearance could exacerbate tensions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which worsened last year after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Qatar's isolation by the Gulf States " inhuman and against Islamic values ​​". In the spring, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described Turkey as part of a "triangle of evil" with Iran and Islamic extremists.

The press in both countries is facing severe restrictions. Turkey was ranked "the worst prison in the world for the second year in a row", with 73 journalists jailed in 2017, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most censored countries in the world. Under the leadership of the Crown Prince and despite his demands for modernization, militant, intellectual and critical women have been arrested.