Editor’s Note: This is the first edition of Dyl’s Earth-Wide InfoShow, a corner of The Johnny Green where Weedsport Senior Dylan Leubner will take a look at important events happening around the world to help students become better informed.

Saudi Arabia and Jamal Khashoggi

As you may already know, a Washington Post journalist by the name of Jamal Khashoggi recently disappeared after going into the Saudi consulate in Turkey. A lot of speculation has turned up from it, including the idea that he got murdered in the consulate. The Turkish government has proof of the supposed murder, stating that Saudi agents under the guise of being “Saudi tourists” were sighted that day entering the consulate with a bone saw. Initially, it seemed that U.S. President Donald Trump may be helping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman cover up the murder, but recently he has condemned the act.

If it seems strange that Trump wouldn’t have initially condemned the apparent murder more quickly, there are reasons. First, these two leaders have been really close allies because of the history the US and Saudi Arabia have with each other. The US and Saudi Arabia began their “special alliance” in the 1930s when oil was discovered there. About 9% of our oil imports come from Saudi Arabia. We had a huge part in getting Saudi Arabia what it has for its military today. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi, if it is proven to have occured, would put a bad image on Mohammed bin Salman and Saudi Arabia. Another time the US did not care about Saudi Arabia doing something bad was when the Saudis were accused of funding the terrorist groups in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Even the US funded these terrorist groups at one point. Not one person cared about it because it was against the Soviets and the American public was against the Soviets.

This is important to students because this involves someone being murdered for speaking out against the government of Saudi Arabia; there really is no freedom of the press there. We have prevented this from happening in our own country because freedom of the press is a Constitutional right. We need to keep our freedom of the press in integrity so that anyone can say anything in the press if they wanted to. It is a bad thing that people are getting silenced by their governments or authorities for what they are saying in these other countries.

Edit: The night after the completion of this article, the Saudi Arabian government confirmed the death of Khashoggi but they covered it up by saying it was a car accident.