To shame a prince, activists want to rename the street in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC "Jamal Khashoggi Way".

Cengiz begged the Saudi regime and Prince Mohammed bin Salman to restore Khashoggi's dead body so he could be buried.

The last speaker was Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on US-Islamic Relations in Washington, who said he believed that he had found the appropriate way to honor his old friend and shame his murderers:

Rename the section of New Hampshire Avenue in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington "Jamal Khashoggi Way".

The 60-year-old journalist, an exile and contributor to the Washington Post, was reportedly killed by Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a month ago.

Because of his undisputed control of the regime and the high notoriety of the assassination, many suspects, Mohammed is directly responsible – an accusation denied by the Saudi prince's supporters.

"We are asking that the roundabout in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington be named Jamal Khashoggi," said Awad. "I want you to launch a petition asking that in every street and town where there is a Saudi embassy or mission, you ask that it be renamed on its behalf."

"Imagine if their mail should be addressed to Khashoggi Way?" Awad said afterward. "That their business cards contain such an address?"

In Washington, the online petition is the brainchild of two unlikely partners, a think tank on two opposing sides of the ideological movement – Michael Werz, senior researcher at the Center for American Progress, and Gary Schmitt, researcher in residence at the American Association. Institute of the company.

Schmitt told the Washington Post that the idea was to hunt down the Saudis for their abusive behavior and to remember that Khashoggi defended freedom of speech and paid the ultimate price to exercise it.

"We did not expect anything like this to mark a radical change in US policy," said Schmitt. "But it's a good reminder of the limits of partnerships with autocratic regimes."

Schmitt said that their petition had already collected about 1,500 signatures – and that when that number would reach 2,000 or more, he and Werz were considering getting closer to a potential ally of DC's board, perhaps even the Mayor of DC, Muriel E. Bowser herself, and look for the name. change.

The Saudi Embassy is located at 601 New Hampshire Ave. NW, at Foggy Bottom, the real estate of choice between the Watergate Hotel and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

"According to the DC board rules, a person can not name a street or a public building after his death for two years or more," says the petition. "Given the principles at stake, we urge Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and the DC Council to make an exception in this case."

This would not be the first name change in Washington to highlight human rights violations.

Earlier this year, federal lawmakers and members of the Security Council joined Russian dissidents to unveil brown signs designating a bit of road in front of the Russian Embassy under the name of "Boris Nemtsov Square", in honor of of the assassinated opposition leader.

Since 2014, the Senate passed bills and amendments introduced by Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz to rename the road in front of the Chinese Embassy, ​​after award-winning writer and activist Liu Xiaobo of the Nobel Peace Prize in China. liver disease.

The name change is stalled in the House after President Barack Obama has declared that he would veto it, but the effort is being re-launched under Trump. In 2014, the idea sparked a keen interest from the Chinese, who said they had to respond to any name change in Washington by calling the boulevard in front of the US Embassy in Beijing "Torture Prisoners Street," "Snowden." Street "or" Osama Bin Laden ". Road, "according to the New York Times.