The difference here is that critics don’t believe that Khashoggi was killed by “rogue government elements” — they believe he was killed because of orders from the top of government. Can you recall the last time a journalist, or other controversial citizen, was killed inside their country’s own embassy? Nevermind one that had such a blatant coverup? I would agree that other governments may have had citizens assassinated and made it look like “rogue government elements”, but not nearly as obvious.
I agree with what you say, but the implications are rather interesting. It means that while we know less than stellar governments kill journalists, the killings themselves aren’t as upsetting as the manner of the killing? As if there is an accepted “etiquette” in those things?
I'm not so sure it's as much about etiquette than deniability.
If he was killed in some "accident" then the other countries or corporations can easily buy the lie, avoid the confrontation and keep the money/relationship (even if they think it is likely to be state-sanctioned). Because it was such a screw up (fiance waiting outside was a kind of solid witness as well as the recording etc.), it is much harder for others to accept the "accident", which becomes toxic PR and therefore something to distance yourselves from.
This is exactly what I was thinking. Other alleged government-ordered assassinations have enough plausible deniability that they may indeed be the work of rogue elements. For example, at around the same time that Khashoggi's death became known, Bulgarian journalist Viktoria Marinova was found raped and murdered after she had gone out for a jog. It was immediately suspected to be politically-motivated, as she had recently anchored a news program that looked at EU corruption. A few days ago, a 21-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of Marinova's rape and murder, and prosecutors do not believe that she was killed for her work [0].
Of course, that doesn't mean she wasn't killed as part of a state plot. But there's not much reason to suspect that over the possibility that she was a random murder victim. For her death to be as scandalous and controversial as Khashoggi's, it would have to have the same evidence of suspicious circumstances. For example, the 21-year-old suspect being an employee of Bulgaria's intelligence agency or military covert forces, and being caught and identified right after her death, but taking 1+ weeks to come up with the confession that he randomly murdered her, despite purported audio recordings that suggest that he murdered with political intent.
This is bullshit. The difference is that this guy was a blue check mark with a column in the Washington Post. He was a journalist, one of them.
If a human rights activist had been killed in the same way the story would have blown over already. It is not news to anyone that Saudi Arabia is the personal fief of the Saud family, who are brutish medieval thugs. Everyone knows perfectly well that they cut off people’s hands and crucify people and if there’s a government on the Arabian peninsula that doesn’t use torture according to Amnesty or Human Rights Watch I’ll be very much surprised.
The denial was not meant to be credible, it was meant to be nakedly obvious that he was killed in the consulate and they were meant to get away with it s it free as a warning to any other dissidents.
And the next time they will. It’s the combination of being a guy who goes to inside Beltway cocktail parties, the Turkish government having the consulate bugged and the Saudis’ gross incompetence that did it. The absence of any one would have had them getting off Scot free.
So presumably you're going to provide us a list with human rights activists who have been killed in the same way? That said, I don't see what you're arguing here. Is there any doubt that the murders of well-known people get more attention than murders of less-known people? And when a well-known someone is brazenly murdered in connection to the reason he was well-known, that the fame effect is amplified? What's your point?
Not an activist, but the head of the Interpol was kidnapped (and currently whereabouts unknown) by his own country. Not a random person, but head of the Interpol.
Don't see the same outcry. Also the Maltese journalist (Caruana) uncovering European dark money who was bombed --not much press.
There's not been the same outcry but there has definitely been coverage of the fact that Meng Hongwei had been detained by the Chinese government [0], just as there was when Fan Bingbing, "China's most famous actress", disappeared before recently announcing she had been investigated for tax evasion [1]. Should there be more outcry about the Chinese government detaining its citizens without transparency? Sure, but I think it's obvious why Khashoggi's case has received more attention. Not just that he died and his body is currently missing, but for the ongoing coverup. Also, both have at least been officially accused of crimes by their government, whereas Khashoggi AFAIK had not been at the time of his death.
edit: Memories and perceptions vary, of course, but Caruana's murder from what I remember got a massive amount of attention in the media. The top Google result for "Caruana murder" are currently from the BBC, NPR, The Guardian, and the NYT. In addition, the "Forbidden Stories" collaboration was launched to continue her work:
> After her death, 45 journalists from 18 news organizations agreed to work together to pursue leads from her work on corruption and international money-laundering networks, as well as look into the circumstances surrounding her death. Forbidden Stories, an investigative nonprofit in Paris devoted to completing the work of jailed and murdered journalists, coordinated the collaboration, in which The New York Times took part.
She was killed 1 year ago but her death still gets recent coverage, like this article from 2 days ago from the Committee to Protect Journalists:
> presumably you're going to provide us a list with human rights activists who have been killed in the same way
The root-level comment [0] is speculating that there's "something different about this", because Khashoggi's death what seems like an inordinate amount of attention. I'm arguing that his alleged assassination is getting so much attention because of the egregious circumstances and coverup surrounding it. If it were the case that many, or even just a few other people have died under similar circumstances, only to be quickly forgotten, then it would strengthen the implication that the controversy around Khashoggi is partly concocted by some greater conspiracy.
I understood what you are saying, and FWIW I'm very glad Khashoggi is getting all this attention.
But that doesn't make the parent wrong that Khashoggi getting attention disproportionate to similar crimes (and it doesn't demonstrate a conspiracy; IMHO he simply is more prominent and in many people's minds he is effectively an American journalist and/or represents American values).
I assume you must be aware that horrible things like this happen to many people in many countries - and I wish they all got this level of attention. Just off the top of my head, in China there are people in Xinjiang in labor/re-education camps, people who disappear when they go to Beijing to petition the government, dissidents who the Chinese government kidnaps from foreign countries, etc. That's just one country; there's N Korea, Myanmar, Russia (all the murdered and imprisoned journalists and political opposition) and so many more.
I'm not sure what you're really trying to say. Is the crime in Khashoggi's case qualitatively different? Because he was killed? While not everyone in every example I named was killed, certainly many are.
Yes, Khashoggi's case is qualitatively different -- not just because he was killed, but because of who he was in life, the manner of his alleged murder, and the ensuing coverup. We can agree in theory, or ideally, that all deaths/murders should be equal in weight. But pragmatically, we only have a limited attention span to devote to a finite number of these tragedies. And the info and background around Khashoggi's case is substantially more accessible than people who have been covertly murdered.
Of course famous people get more attention when things happen to them (not just death, but relationships, babies, job changes, etc) -- the nature of being famous is that more people know about you at all. But the parent commenter is wrong to believe that the attention and stories given to Khashoggi are simply about the event of his murder. Khashoggi was a journalist for one of the world's largest and most prestigious news organizations -- it shouldn't be a surprise that those newspeople are inclined to make a big deal of his death. And because his life involved being an outspoken critic of a particularly important world leader -- which unavoidably entangles other world leaders, such as President Trump -- the matters surrounding his death are going to continue draw worldwide attention.
For sure we can presume if he’d been sympathetic to Kurds in the southeast, or critical of the post coup attempt crackdown, he’d likely be on a different list. Point being this seems like Turkish manoeuvering for their benefit. But that said the coordination in the reaction has been unique.
