Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) is coming to Silicon Valley to meet with Big Tech, media and war criminals like Condoleezza Rice to sell the myth that he is a reformer and say that Saudi Arabia’s repressive regime is open for business. We must take a stand against MbS’ web of lies, demanding that he stop his catastrophic war in Yemen and lift his humanitarian and commercial blockade.
The Prince bought out the Four Seasons Hotel in East Palo Alto for a week. Join in a protest outside the hotel located at 2050 University Ave on Thursday, April 5 at 10:00 am. We need to stand against normalizing violence! Let’s demand action for Yemen, because #YemenCantWait.
“Mohammad bin Salman employs an army of lobbyists and PR firms to sell himself as a reformer when he is really a war criminal and a power-hungry thug whose ego rivals that of Donald Trump,” says Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK co-founder. “It is absurd that the U.S. is in bed with this ‘prince’ who mercilessly bombs Yemen, shakes down Saudi businessmen, captured the Lebanese prime minister, concocted a rift with Qatar, and even kidnapped his own mother. The Saudi monarchy also jails and beheads dissidents, discriminates against the Shia minority, and forces women to live under a repressive male guardianship system. It is not a regime the United States should be arming and abetting.”
MbS’ U.S. tour included a visit with Trump that resulted in a press conference touting the President’s plan to sell more weapons to Saudi Arabia. MbS is also meeting with Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale while he is here, to stockpile more weapons that will continue the devastating humanitarian crisis and killing of civilians in Yemen. MbS is in our backyard and we need to say no to war and weapons. We need your help to stand up for Yemen and against war.
We urge the Bay Area to refuse meeting with bin Salman. He is a mass murderer, war criminal, and absolute dictator who is not only the de facto leader of a repressive regime but has single-handedly led the charge in one of the most disastrous conflicts of the post-Cold War era with his relentless strikes against the people of Yemen.
Recent stories about Saudi women finally being allowed to drive and even attend sporting events might have the patina of a feel-good Hollywood screenplay, but the reality is that Saudi women and men remain deprived of almost every conceivable political and civil right. Even worse, bin Salman's war in Yemen, launched when he was “Defense” Minister, has killed at least 5,000 Yemeni civilians and caused the world's worst cholera outbreak in decades. MbS’ war is the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II — even worse than Syria — and has destroyed numerous irreplaceable world heritage sites while pushing the Middle East closer to disintegration than it has been since the first World War.
We will not normalize violence and human rights violations!
In peace and solidarity,
CODEPINK Bay Area