BEIRUT, Lebanon – For Saudi Arabia, hosting the Group of 20 Summit in Riyadh this year should cement its global significance. Heads of state from the world’s richest nations should be impressed by the kingdom’s raw beauty and changing society – and encouraged to drift back in time to its war in Yemen and the murder of a prominent journalist.
For critics of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, the event was very different: a unique opportunity to highlight the abuses of the kingdom and to urge world leaders to embarrass its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman .
It is not expected to live up to either side’s hopes. Instead, the coronavirus has effectively reduced the G-20 summit – like so many meetings this year – to a huge webinar.
This may not be bad news for Prince Mohammed. Despite fierce campaigns from activists, no state has decided to boycott the virtual event on Saturday and Sunday, making it a significant step in the prince’s rehabilitation among world leaders.
“Of course it didn’t go as planned, but that could have been a blessing,” said Karen Young, an American Enterprise Institute-based scientist who studies Middle Eastern economics.
Heads of state and other dignitaries who may have declined to appear in photos in Riyadh have less to lose at an online event as the summit aims to claim the kingdom’s place among the powerful countries it considers peers , continues to drive forward.
“A virtual conference plays with Saudi Arabia’s strengths and could prevent embarrassing mishaps,” she said.
The summit of leaders on Saturday and Sunday will address pressing global issues, including fighting the coronavirus, resuming damaged economies and possible financial aid to poor countries hit hard by the pandemic.
The empowerment of women and sustainable energy development are also discussed on the agenda and in complementary events.
Senior government officials said President Trump is due to attend, although the agenda may underscore the United States’ failure to control the spread of the virus and Mr Trump’s preference for traditional energy sources like oil and coal.
The G-20 is a forum for the 19 nations with the world’s largest economies and the European Union to discuss global economic issues. The presidency of the organization alternates between five groups of countries, with one country in each group holding the position. Saudi Arabia was first named president last December in a group with Canada, Australia and the United States.
The kingdom celebrated the title in recognition of the importance of the world’s largest oil exporter to the global economy as well as an opportunity to unveil comprehensive social and economic reforms advocated by Prince Mohammed, whose father, King Salman, became the Saudi monarch in 2015.
Since then, Prince Mohammed has lifted some restrictions on women, promoted entertainment and tourism, and advanced plans to diversify the economy away from oil. He also led the Saudi military into the civil war in Yemen, which has turned into a serious humanitarian crisis, imprisoning clergymen, women’s rights activists and even members of the royal family.
In 2018, Saudi agents arrested, killed and dismembered the dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. This has damaged Prince Mohammed’s reputation and resulted in activists punishing Saudi Arabia for this and other human rights violations.
These activists seized the presidency of the G-20 Kingdom to promote their cause and campaigned for members of the group to boycott the summit or use it as a platform to demand the release of detainees.
Last month, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz used his keynote address at an event organized by Saudi Arabia to present Mr Khashoggi and a group of women arrested after defying the kingdom’s earlier ban for a moment to urge silence to drive women. The ban was lifted in 2018, but some of the women remain in detention.
“If this meeting does not deal with violations of these human rights and those in other countries around the world, it cannot hope to achieve the inclusive societies that we all strive for,” said Stiglitz in a video of the event. called the Think 20 summit, which was captured by activists but not posted on the event’s website.
The mayors of Paris, Los Angeles, London and New York have declined invitations to G-20 events, and a number of rights groups organized an alternative virtual summit this weekend to highlight the kingdom’s human rights record.
However, the critics appear to have had limited impact on the headline event, the Summit of Heads of State and Government, although some hoped individual speakers would use their platforms to raise rights issues.
“Some said, ‘This is too important, we have to plan a strategy for Covid and deal with major economic issues,” said Adam Coogle, deputy director of Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, of his lobbying responses Group. “There were others who saw that it was problematic that Saudi Arabia received this reward.”
The spokesmen for the Foreign Ministry and the Foreign Ministries of France and Germany did not respond to requests for comment as to whether they had considered the kingdom’s human rights record when deciding to attend the summit.
“The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was a heinous crime and we have repeatedly called for justice to be done,” a British government spokesman wrote, adding that the foreign minister raised the issue during a visit to the Saudi government in March.
Mr Coogle said he was impressed with the Saudi G-20 program’s emphasis on women empowerment while prominent Saudi women activists were “imprisoned, silenced or in exile”.
“That needs attention from the participants,” he said. “It’s not something that can be swept under the rug.”
The reporting was contributed by Mark Landler from London, Norimitsu Onishi from Paris, Katrin Bennhold from Berlin and Lara Jakes and Michael Crowley from Washington.
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