There’s a noticeable double standard around the handling of the lonely deaths of Asra Abdullah Alsehli and Amaal Abdullah Alsehli in a Canterbury flat earlier this year.
The lack of information from NSW Police — we still don’t know why the sisters died, for example; the political quiet around the case; the seeming drift of the case into the status of half-remembered mystery. Now we learn that their bodies have been returned to Saudi Arabia, with some mystery about when this occurred.
If the sisters had sought asylum from Russia, Iran or China rather than Saudi Arabia, it would be very, very different: politicians would be demanding answers; the flow of information from police that accompanies high-profile cases would be steady and full; theories of Russian, Chinese or Iranian agents murdering people in Australia would be regularly aired. Instead, police have allowed a theory of “tragic suicide” to be filtered into the media.
With that, we seem to be being encouraged to forget about Asra and Amaal, two evidently frightened women who were hoping for sanctuary in Australia after fleeing one of the world’s most appalling regimes, who now join the list of women who end up dead when they try to escape a brutal, misogynist regime. All the more so because in Australia we’re accustomed to seeing asylum-seeking through the lens of the maritime arrivals conflagration, not the desperation of people being victimised by their own governments.
What we do know is that the Saudi regime has no respect either for basic human rights or for norms of international conduct. Like the Putin regime in Russia, it is perfectly happy to abduct, “disappear” or murder critics and dissenters abroad — in the case of Jamal Kashoggi, in an even more gruesome manner than Putin’s obsession with nerve agents. And its treatment of internal critics would make the Chinese blush: a woman sentenced to decades in jail for tweets; women sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered in Saudi prisons.
On this basis, suspicion of foul play must automatically fall on the Saudi regime in relation to the deaths of the sisters.
But what we also know is that Western governments, including our own, see Saudi crimes as an inconvenience in the broader relationship with a regime that wields substantial power over oil prices but which is also, now, a major source of potential investment, and which is allied to Western interests in its region.
The Morrison government was reluctantly forced to condemn the murder of Kashoggi in 2018 after international outrage made its silence on the matter untenable. In June last year, former foreign affairs minister Marise Payne was happy to announce a new ambassador to the kingdom, Mark Donovan.
“Australia has a strong and growing bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia, with which we share economic ties and security interests,” Payne trilled. No mention of Saudi Arabia’s horrific war in Yemen, its ongoing war on women at home, or its murders abroad. Back to business as usual.
Perhaps the sisters’ deaths were indeed a “tragic suicide”, of young women lost and unhappy without family or anchors in an alien culture, especially in a city like Sydney where community bonds have been bulldozed along with the houses levelled to make way for apartment blocks. Or perhaps the prospect of failing in their asylum bid was too much. But without peddling conspiracy theories, Australians have reason to think not merely that the Saudi government was involved, but that our own governments have little incentive to examine that involvement too closely, and would prefer the women slipped from collective memory.
The lack of transparency around their deaths only serves to amplify this sense that something is deeply amiss. Presumably our intelligence services keep an eye on the actions of people connected to the Saudi government and embassy here. Has NSW Police spoken to them? So many questions.
More broadly, it’s strange that a country prepared to endanger its own economic interests to stand up to China isn’t prepared to be more vocal about a regime that, pound for pound, is even worse than Beijing. Especially when we know its disposition to murder those who displease or embarrass it. That’s why transparency about this case is crucial.
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Yes, the response to these deaths suggests little concern about getting to the truth, in case it is inconvenient, and a strong preference for not ruffling any important feathers. But:
“More broadly, it’s strange that a country prepared to endanger its own economic interests to stand up to China isn’t prepared to be more vocal…”
Australia’s willingness to annoy China does not stand in contrast. Australia does this because of its craven attachment to the USA. It is not making a stand against China from any moral principles (who could possibly think morality enters into it if they know anything about Australia?), it does so because it has no independent foreign or defence policy and instead kowtows to the USA. Likewise, Australia will do nothing to offend the Saudis because that is what the USA wants. Australia is being completely consistent.
I’d add the UK to the mix of Saudi apologists and Aussie kowtowees.
Don’t even think of ruffling saudi feathers. What a gutless nation we are becoming.
Biden campaigned on holding the Saudis to account over Khashoggi and releasing the full NSA Twin Towers investigation but folded like a cheap serviette on both issues.
Arabs call oil Shaitan’s Blood as it weakens everyone who takes it.
can’t help but agree.
Agree
Was there an inquest or an autopsy? If not, why not, and if so, what were the findings?
My thoughts exactly
What? Facts instead of supposition and conspiracy theories? That just won’t do. How will the media do a beat up based on facts and not opinion? The truth is that we don’t know how they died and whether SA (or anyone else for that matter) was involved in their deaths.
Here is a very good example of the media doing its work. Articles like this will put pressure on the powers to be to come clean.
Come clean about what? So far all I have read is supposition and conspiracy theories. I repeat, we don’t know how they died and whether SA (or anyone else) was involved in their deaths.
Very Trumpian logic…………..
……….the point of the article is that NOBODY SEEMS INTERESTED IN FINDING OUT.
And? People die everyday in Australia and investigations by Police and the Coroner can take some time. Until such time as that occurs, any “theories” are just supposition and fantasy.
Given that their family are in SA and the girls bodies repatriated to them for burial, it’s a matter between the NSW Police/Coroner, the SA Embassy and the girls family. You may find this hard to believe but sometimes families like their affairs to be kept private. The public doesn’t always have a right to know.
This is just the usual media beat up and I expect better of Crikey.
As there is a noticeable lack of interest by those who would normally seek “facts” in such deaths, all that is left is “supposition and conspiracy theories”.
How do you know there is a lack of interest? The matter is with the NSW Police and Coroner and until such time as they complete their investigation (which can take some time) all this is an absolute media beat up.
Investigations take as long as they take, it’s not CSI you know.
So smelling a rat isn’t good reason to be concerned? I take your point that there is no information and the family have the right to ask for privacy, I’ve already congratulated Bernard and Crikey for bothering to look, so I hope you are proven wrong,.. ha ,sheesh, you make a fair point
Smelling a rat on no evidence whatsoever? What do we actually know as facts? 2 bodies found anything between 4 and 6 weeks after death, interim toxicology shows substances (found with the bodies) also in their system, no sign of forced entry to the premises or violence on the remains. The bodies are back in SA with their family. That is the sum total of what is publicly known. That is the all of it. I’m sure that the family would absolutely love to read the various conspiracy theories while grieving for their loved ones. Wouldn’t you?
I dislike mob “justice” (because it isn’t) and media beat ups (that only benefit the media) based on absolutely no facts in evidence. Once the Police and Coroner have completed their investigation then we will have actual facts rather than pure “murder mystery” guessing and conspiracy theories by those so inclined. It is standard practice for the Police to withhold information while investigating.
Always remember the Media adage “never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
Shhh, don’t embarass anyone.
Agree, me thinks the NSW Rum Corps, sorry Police, need to be interrogated on this one as there seems to be an appalling lack of detail or care? Or the ‘Anglosphere’ afraid of upsetting MBS?
Double standards? Australia? Surely not!
The ABC’s excellent investigative radio program, Background Briefing, had a session on the deaths of the Saudi girls recently. It’s well worth listening to.
What did they conclude or find?
It’s available to stream from the ABC site, so you can answer your question quite easily.
Nothing that hasn’t been stated here. They expressly stated that to link the backgrounds of these two girls to their deaths would be pure speculation at this time.
let’s not forget the Saudi’s also financed 9/11