Sons of jailed Saudi scholars urge Cambridge to drop plans to train Riyadh staff | University of Cambridge
The families of two academics facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia have called on the University of Cambridge to withdraw its offer to organize staff training courses for Riyadh’s defense ministry.
The Guardian revealed last week that Cambridge’s Judge business school had been authorized to provide “leadership development” and “innovation management” training to Saudi defense ministry staff, despite internal opposition within the university over the kingdom’s record on human rights and academic freedom.
The sons of two men who have been tried by Saudi courts for almost a decade have demanded Cambridge Chancellor Chris Smith and Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice stop any deal.
The letter states: “A prestigious partnership like this [the Saudi crown prince] Mohammed bin Salman’s false narrative of reform despite evidence that human rights abuses continue. Saudi authorities executed at least 356 people last year; “This was the highest number in the Kingdom’s modern history.”
Saudi Arabia’s prosecutor is said to be seeking the death penalty for Islamic scholars and writers Hassan Farhan al-Maliki and Salman al-Odah over a “vaguely formulated set of charges”, according to international human rights organisations.
A joint letter from sons Abobaker Almalki and Abdullah al-Odah reads: “As families who have watched our loved ones suffer for years because they exercised the freedoms that the university seeks to protect, we feel compelled to seek help.”
Al-Maliki, a religious reformer and commentator, has been in prison since 2017 and is accused of numerous crimes, including giving interviews to foreign media and possessing banned books.
In 2017, al-Odah was also arrested for his social media posts and was accused before the country’s secret specialized criminal court of “mocking the government’s achievements”, among other charges.
Jeed Basyouni Postponement of human rights organizationHe said: “Universities pride themselves on being the home of free thought and academic debate. Despite external pressures, freedom of expression must be upheld as a fundamental principle of higher education.”
“Hassan and Salman risk execution for daring to express themselves as academics and public figures. A deal like this makes a mockery of the values that founders like Cambridge claim to represent and risks further legitimizing Mohammed bin Salman’s brutal regime.”
Cambridge’s aids and external and legal affairs committee, which reviews reputational risk proposals, earlier this year approved a request by the Judge business school to seek a “memorandum of understanding” (MoU) with the Saudi ministry of defense to develop executive education courses.
A spokesperson for the university declined to comment on the letter, referring to the business school’s previous statement: “Cambridge Judge business school has not signed any such Memorandum of Understanding with the Saudi Arabian ministry of defence.”
Documents seen by the Guardian show Hakim business school officials asked for and received permission from the aid committee to “sign a memorandum of understanding” with the Saudi ministry at a meeting in January. Prentice is chairman of the relief committee.
Senior academics at Cambridge said they were “appalled” by the proposal, while Jemimah Steinfeld, chief executive of the Index on Censorship, described it as “disgusting”.
“Even when an agreement is spelled out that academic freedom will be protected, when it comes to money, self-censorship has a terrible habit of creeping in,” Steinfeld said.
The letter, written by the sons of the detained academics, states: “In our view, the only meaningful assurance is to insist that Saudi Arabia end its crackdown on freedom of expression and release those who are prosecuted solely for their beliefs as a precondition for engagement.”
