We have already said that what happened to Jamal Khashoggi is not an action taken against him but also one taken against Turkey. The truth that surfaced only in two days is that the entire free and honorable world took it personally.
This calamitous and brutal act, as expected, has caused a great indignation in the world. We had asked before for how long this would remain a secret, and what was hastily done at that moment could not even cover the facts, rather it only served to uncover the whole reality. It seems that Khashoggi’s name and what happened to him will be a symbol of a demand for a major change around the globe.
Before entering the Saudi consulate, Khashoggi told his fiancé Miss Hatice to call myself and Turan Kışlakçı if something happened to him. Unfortunately, according to the information we have right now, when she called us it was already too late. We never had the chance to protect him or help get him out while he was alive. To tell the truth, this gives us an even bigger responsibility. We could not prevent the abduction or (although we are still trying to think positively) the murder of Khashoggi, who I have been following with great admiration. That is why our shame is ineffable. However, what he left behind, not only his memory, but also his struggle which he attached more importance to than his own life: strengthening human rights, democracy, freedom of speech and all the other freedoms, strengthening the importance attached to human dignity, ending corruption and assuring transparency in the governance of the states in the Muslim world.
Actually, all his words, which were centered around these values, disturbing some groups was inevitable. We have actually always been disturbing some and will continue to do so. He was observing how far Turkey has come in these issues and, in the meantime, he did not hesitate to criticize its deficiencies. His critiques, however, did not disturb anyone in Turkey because he was sincere, constructive, not evil-minded; he was not hostile but friendly. In fact, his critiques against his own country were also like those against Turkey, but the Saudis were usually offended. It was not Khashoggi himself who had a lack of sincerity, or was ill-intentioned and hostile, but the ones he criticized. Khashoggi’s critiques which caused the most disturbance were obviously those against the recent arbitrary arrests of intellectuals, scholars, and journalists. He already knew that if he stayed he would be arrested too, and that is why he was saying that he was trying to pay his freedom’s price by criticizing these arrests. Actually, as a part of his legacy, we need to talk even more about this issue. Because he used to think that it was inappropriate not to talk about it. The way the current Saudi government is trying to silence the opposition by putting them in prisons under harsh conditions is disturbing the conscience of the entire Muslim world.
Keeping respected, prominent scholars, who have been struggling with diseases like Salman al-Awdah, Safar bin Abdurrahman al-Hawali, in prisons for no reason is not Saudi Arabia’s internal issue, but a matter of the entire Muslim world.
Arresting or silencing scholars for criticizing the recent reforms, and also the arrest of one of the greatest Muslim scholars, Prof. Abdulaziz al-Fawzan, was the issue that Khashoggi was the most critical about. To make him pay for these critiques like this indicates that things are not going well in Saudi Arabia. By the way, it seems that at the beginning, Khashoggi’s abduction or murder was presented as a success of the intelligence service in the Saudi media. Of course, there was a great confusion there too. When it was found out that he was missing, the news were reporting that he was arrested by Interpol.
First of all, there was no search warrant for him, and secondly, there was nothing successful about this whether it be intelligence-wise or operational. Anything can be done to an unarmed, defenseless person who entered his own consulate trusting its staff, but it is not possible to call it an operational success.
Khashoggi was not caught quiet and retiring where he was hiding. On the contrary, we are facing an amateur job of a team who messed up everything.
As a result of all these, if one asks, “What did Jamal Khashoggi do wrong?” our answer would be: “It was trusting.”
To begin with, he trusted that his people would not do such things to him. He trusted the level of Saudi Arabia-Turkey relations which he had worked hard to improve. He trusted that Saudi Arabia would not dare to harm these relations. He trusted that such a thing might happen to him in any place but Turkey. More importantly, he trusted that no one would do anything to him when he defenselessly set foot on his country’s soil.
Because, he trusted his country’s traditional values. He trusted that his people could not be that corrupt, could not be that deviated from their own customs and traditions and could not be that decomposed.
Of course, although it was punished in this world like this, this is something to be treated differently in the divine court.
