Saudi Arabia's Missing Princes

Of all of the governments with which the West keeps a cozy relationship, few are more oppressive than Saudi Arabia. The House of Saud, a sprawling royal family with thousands of members, has used their country's oil wealth to establish a hyper-oppressive totalitarian monarchy, based on an extremist sect of Islam called Wahhabism.

Despite the ultra-conservative ideology of the Saudi state, members of the Saudi royal family live lives of luxury and excess. They regularly spend time in a network of palaces and mansions throughout Europe and the Middle East and are more or less untouchable from their own oppressive laws. That is of course unless they decide to speak out against their own regime.

Several members of this royal family have indeed left Saudi Arabia, and criticized the way their own family runs the country. Some have simply highlighted the lack of rights within the country, while others have called for insurrection. Such dissent is not tolerated, however, by the House of Saud, and they will appear to go to any length in order to permanently mute these voices.

Reda El Mawy's article for BBC details the 'disappearance' of several dissident Saudi royals. Within his article, based on an extensive network of sources, he describes the horrific abductions of these royals and their forced repatriation to Saudi Arabia, where they face an indefinite time in secret underground prisons. As well, he interviews the one remaining (known) dissident royal in Europe, who himself feels it is only a matter of time before they come for him.