BEIRUT LETTER
This is a video in the form of a will, which appeared on April 12 on Twitter. Saudi Abdel Rahim Al-Huwaïti recorded it on the roof of his house in the village of Al-Khurayba on the Red Sea coast in the northwest corner of the kingdom. The worried face, the tired voice, the man protested against the programmed disappearance of this poor town, wedged between the waves of the Gulf of Akaba and the sands of the desert.
For compensation, all its inhabitants were ordered to abandon their land, to make way for Neom, the futuristic city at 500 billion dollars (462 billion euros), that the crown prince Mohammed Ben Salman, the strong man of Riyadh intends to build in this remote region. And too bad if the eviction notices fall in the middle of the Covid-19 epidemic, which killed more than 100 people in Saudi Arabia.
"This is state terrorism, laments the bushy bearded villager wearing an orange turban. I am against the forced displacement of people. I don't want to leave, I don't want compensation, I just want to stay in my house. " Well aware of crossing a red line, today's Arabia having no tolerance for the expression of opinions contrary to the official line, Abdel Rahim Al-Huwaïti adds in a prescient tone. "I would not be surprised if they came to kill me in my house, threw weapons in it and called me a terrorist … This is my house and I will protect it. "
A day later, the Al-Khurayba rebel died in the intervention of the security forces, who arrested him at his home. Authorities say the police had to defend themselves after being shot and claim, based on their claims, that weapons were discovered on the spot. Relatives of the deceased and human rights organizations, arguing that the possession of weapons is common in these tribal regions, speak of an extrajudicial assassination. A way of silencing a nuisance and sending a warning to a community that is a little too restless.
The Howeïtat sling
Because behind Abdel Rahim Al-Huwaïti, now presented as the "martyr of Neom", it is a whole part of his tribe, the Howeïtat, who refuses to be sacrificed to the pharaonic project of Mohammed Ben Salman, known as "MBS", the king's son. The sling of this clan, which has tens of thousands of members, divided between the north of Saudi Arabia, the south of Jordan and the Egyptian Sinai, appeared in the light of day in a video of January. Several of its members were seen there, in a very heated discussion with an emissary of the Saudi dolphin, explaining that they refused the offers of compensation for power and that they insisted on staying on their ancestral lands.
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