Jailed Saudi feminist refuses to deny torture to secure release

theguardian.com

46 points·jasonhansel··6 comments

If you don't like this regime one small thing you can do to help is to buy an electric car like a Tesla instead of one that uses fuel produced from Saudi oil. That will hit them where it hurts, in the wallet.

Middle eastern countries get away with all kinds of abuses, because oil. Remove the oil and they won't have the same bargaining power they do now.

I don't think having oil makes any difference at all. There are plenty of African countries with regimes that violate human rights. As long as a country keeps the abuse below a threshold that forces intervention then nothing much happens. For example, the Rwanda genocide reached a level that forced international action. But the 'disappeared' in Chile never reached a level that forced action.

Electric car, sure, but Tesla? Doesn't the company have some Saudi money in it? Not sure how much stake they have in it, but I'd guess they are close enough Elon Musk tried to take the company private with their backing

Or boycott anything backed by SoftBank, in which the Saudis are huge investors via the Vision Fund. Such as WeWork.

Also reduce car trips in general, if it's an option

I haven't even owned a car for the past 3 years but I understand that's not possible for everybody. Having a grocery store in a 10 minute walk helps a lot.

But the US doesn't use that much Saudi oil anymore. Only 16%. Europe, Africa and Asia do. In 1990 Saudi was still the Nr. 1 exporter to the US, but not anymore.

https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/usa/show... https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/sitc/import/usa/show...

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