Biden Urged to ‘Demand Justice’ for Shireen Abu Akleh, Jamal Khashoggi

Ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s trip to the Middle East this week, advocates pressured him to seize the opportunity to “demand justice” for slain journalists Jamal Khashoggi and Shireen Abu Akleh.

“In light of his pledge to place human rights at the forefront of his foreign policy, the very least President Biden can do during his trip to Jerusalem is meet with… Shireen Abu Akleh’s family and demand justice for her murder,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest U.S. Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.

In a letter addressed to Biden and also shared with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Abu Akleh’s family last week requested to meet with the president—who is set to visit Israel, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and Saudi Arabia from Wednesday to Friday.

The family pointed out that investigations by the United Nations Human Rights Office, the Jerusalem-based group B’Tselem, and various journalists have found that Israeli forces killed Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American who was reporting in the West Bank for Al Jazeera.

The journalist’s niece, Lina Abu Akleh—who said that she spoke with her aunt almost daily before she was killed on May 11—told The Guardian on Tuesday that the White House has not responded.

“The U.S. is clearly trying to bury the case. They’re trying to cover it up,” she said. “If Shireen was killed in Ukraine, I’m 100% sure the reaction would have been completely different. There would have been action taken from day one. There would have been accountability. There would have been a transparent and independent investigation. And there would have been justice.”

Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire echoed the family’s demand for action, saying Tuesday that “the United States must not abandon Shireen Abu Akleh, a citizen of their country.”

Critics of Biden’s trip have also highlighted the conclusion by the U.S. intelligence community and many others that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—with whom Biden is set to meet this week—approved the October 2018 assassination of Khashoggi, a Saudi national and U.S. resident who wrote columns for The Washington Post.

“The president should also demand justice for Jamal Khashoggi during his visit to Saudi Arabia,” said CAIR’s Mitchell. “Failing to even mention these slain reporters during his Middle Eastern trip would send exactly the wrong message to both foreign governments and vulnerable journalists around the world.”

As Common Dreams noted Monday, human rights and peace campaigners were outraged by reporting that the Biden administration is considering lifting its ban on the sale of “offensive” U.S. weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Originally published at Commondreams.org, written by Jessica Corbett.