RSF refers Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance to UN Working Group

Protestors hold pictures of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a demonstration in front of the Saudi Arabian consulate, on October 5, 2018 in Istanbul.

Organisation:

RSF_en

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and two other human rights groups, Al Karama and ALQST, have jointly referred the case of the missing dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

RSF is also calling for an independent international investigation to determine what happened to Khashoggi, a well-known newspaper columnist living in self-imposed exile in the United States who has not been seen since he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a week ago.

RSF suggests that the investigation could be carried out by David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and by the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

Khashoggi’s disappearance has come amid an intense crackdown on critics of the Saudi government in which more than 15 journalists and bloggers have been arrested in a completely opaque manner in Saudi Arabia since last September.

Between 25 and 30 professional and non-professional journalists are currently detained in Saudi Arabia, which is ranked 169th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

Published on 10.10.2018