JUSTICE MALALA: Springtime for dictators
Want to murder your opponents or jail dissidents? Don’t worry, Trump’s your ally if you have an oil or property deal for him
What a glorious time it is to be a dictator in the world. You can kidnap, kill, maim and torture your people and others, and never need to worry that you will face international censure or be brought to book. Why? Because the president of the US, Donald Trump, has your back. It is a trend. The president of the US, a role which we have come to associate with standing up for human rights and against dictatorships across the world, now routinely befriends and defends the globe’s strongmen and dictators. He is great buddies with President Vladimir Putin of Russia — a man he has gone to extraordinary lengths to defend even as Putin jails and murders rights activists in his home country. Trump is great buddies with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS), even as evidence piles up that the prince is implicated in the murder of the former Saudi insider and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. And he jails women’s rights activists. Last week, after meeting...
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