Khashoggi memorial held at Saudi consulate in Istanbul

World

Wed 02 October 2019:

Rights activists, press freedom groups and friends of Jamal Khashoggi will hold a memorial in Istanbul on Wednesday outside Riyadh’s consulate, where the Saudi journalist was murdered.

The event on the first anniversary of his death will begin at 1:14 p.m. (1014 GMT), the exact time Khashoggi walked into his country’s diplomatic mission to get documents to marry his Turkish fiancee Hatice Cengiz.

Cengiz, 37, will return to the building where she waited outside for him for several hours a year ago before raising the alarm of his disappearance.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor hailing from a prominent Saudi family, entered the Saudi consulate on Oct. 2, 2018, to collect a document that he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. Agents of the Saudi government killed Khashoggi inside the consulate and apparently dismembered his body, which has never been found.

The scheduled attendees at the service include U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard, who investigated the murder, and Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman.

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos on Wednesday attended a service in Istanbul in the memory of the newspaper’s late contributor Jamal Khashoggi.

During the ceremony held near Saudi Arabia’s consulate, Bezos sat beside Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz. The event is being held in an open space about 100 meters away from Riyadh’s consulate, which is located across a tree-lined avenue.

Bezos told Khashoggi’s fiancee Hatice Cengiz: “You are not alone.”

“No one should ever have had to endure what you did,” Bezos said to Hatice after the two embraced on stage.

“Right here where you are, you faced that street for hours, pacing and waiting – and he never came out. It is unimaginable.”

“And you need to know that you are in our hearts. We are here.”

Also on the stage were U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard, who investigated the murder, and Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman.

Participants later unveiled a memorial for Khashoggi, who had become a sharp critic of the Saudi kingdom.

Prince Mohammed meanwhile, said in an interview this week he takes full responsibility for the killing but denied he ordered it.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *