Timeline
The evasiveness and incompetency of Saudi’s cover-up attempts- October 2 2018 Jamal Khashoggi is killed in the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul. Staff tell Hatice Cengiz he left through another exit. - October 3 Saudi insists Jamal left the building. The Turkish
government states that he didn’t. - October 5 Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says Jamal left.
- October 7 Turkey says it believes he was killed inside the consulate.
- October 9 Jamal’s employer The Washington Post reports that US
intelligence intercepted Saudi plans to abduct Khashoggi. - October 10 Turkish media prints pictures of a 15-member
“assassination squad”.- October 12 Turkey reveals it has
audio recordings of Khashoggi’s
final moments. - October 20 Saudi confirms
Khashoggi died in the consulate,
saying a rogue team accidentally
choked him after “overstepping” its
orders. “These things happen,” the
Saudi foreign minister says. - November 2018, the CIA reportedly
concludes that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing. President
Trump downplays events to protect trade relationships. - February 24 2021 President Biden is resetting US-Saudi relations and
there are reports he will call King Salman in the next few days before
then publishing the CIA report into the killing.
- October 12 Turkey reveals it has
FROM 01 MARCH 2021 BIGISSUE.COM | 33
speech – that’s what economic sanctions are about.”
The already dense plot thickens when it comes
to the motive. Khashoggi was working with another
exiled Saudi activist Omar Abdulaziz and donated
$5,000 to help fund a team of dissident social media
influencers. The Saudis learned about this after
hacking into Abdulaziz’s phone. In another bizarre
twist, it was the same spyware that Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman himself sent via a personal
WhatsApp message to hack and attempt to humiliate
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He happens to own
The Washington Post.
More than just a single, tragic event, Khashoggi’s
story is connected to freedom of speech and
expression in the Middle East and what has happened
in the region in the 10 years since the Arab Spring.
“Authoritarian regimes in the region saw that
social media had the power to ignite revolutions,”
Fogel says. “Saudi Arabia helped to fund opposition
to the Arab Spring to keep the regimes in power. They
also got very wise to the power of social media and
developed their own engine to suppress freedom of
information and freedom of speech.”
Fogel’s film has been a target. In another botched
job, the Saudi government’s digital minions have
posted thousands of negative reviews of The Dissident.
“They’ve been working hard,” Fogel laughs. “Their
little flies are spending lots of time trying to get
the film bad IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes reviews.
Luckily, not a single critic agrees with them. It’s
actually humorous, especially when you see the film
and understand exactly what they do. You see the
rudimentary workings of it, just a hack organisation.”
Though he sees the funny side, The Dissident has
struggled to find international distributers willing to
risk alienating one of their markets.
“This is a trying time to be in the truth to
power business. Global businesses are interested
in growth, and growth comes from a global
marketplace,” he says.
“What the film clearly shows is that business
interests and money conquer all. So the fact that
the big streaming services are choosing not to
distribute the film across all of their subscriber base
is disappointing. It’s also not shocking.”Words: Steven MacKenzie @stevenmackenzie
The Dissident’s UK premiere will be online as part of
Glasgow Film Festival on March 6.
For more information visit thedissident.flm