Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) planned UK visit, which was scheduled to take place next week, is postponed indefinitely, well-informed sources revealed.
The move followed a decision by the German government to prevent Britain’s sale of 48 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to Saudi Arabia.
The sources further pointed out that the decision to postpone MBS’s UK visit was due to his poor human rights record, especially his involvement in journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing.
MBS’s UK visit has angered rights groups as he seeks to further rehabilitate himself in light of his poor human rights record, amid calls on UK authorities to cancel the invitation.
Over the past few years, Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars on high-profile international sporting events in a bid to bolster its international reputation.
A source familiar with discussions said that the momentous scale of Saudi Arabia’s investments in what they term “sportswashing,” the practice of investing or hosting sporting events in a bid to obscure the Kingdom’s poor human rights record, and tout itself as a new leading global venue for tourism and events.
It has already spent billions of dollars to stand up a new golf league, invested billions more into video-game publishers and is now turning its attention to Hollywood, the sources said.
The country is also offering generous incentives to filmmakers and studios if they shoot there and these incentives have already enticed a couple of productions, including a film starring Anthony Mackie.
Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Development Fund is poised to launch a new $233m ($879m Saudi Riyal) film industry financing program in the first quarter of 2023, which will be open to both local and international entities.
According to the sources, the move was part of a wider strategy to open up the country and move its economy away from a reliance on oil. Other key supports include a 40% rebate for production.
Riyadh is now seeing more than $64 billion in entertainment investment, with a significant proportion of that going to the live music industry.
The shocking reports on MBS’s huge spending on film making have drowned sharp criticism among Saudis.
The oil-rich country is regularly criticised by human rights groups for its detention and torture of political opponents and for its intervention in the military conflict in Yemen, which has led to thousands of civilian deaths.The murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 also led to worldwide outrage.
Saudi Arabia has long been accused of using sport and entertainment to whitewash this poor human rights record at home and abroad.
Earlier, Richard Edelman, the CEO of the $1bn public relations firm Edelman, signed $9.6m in deals with the Saudi government over the past four years to sanitize the kingdom’s image.
The work, which was directed at American audiences and was projected to net Edelman more than $5.6m (£4.6m) in fees, included sending regular press releases that celebrated topics such as “mainstreaming women in business” and “doubling down efforts to empower women and youth”, the paper revealed.
One release featured a quote from Princess Reema bint Bandar Al-Saud, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, who “commend[ed] the B20 Saudi Arabia’s deep commitment to the empowerment of women”, including an “inclusive policy development process” that she hoped would “remain as one of the Saudi presidency’s lasting legacies”.
The report also pointed out that Edelman’s foreign agent filings suggest that by the time its work is completed, the firm will have earned more than $3m from the company developing Neom.
On 31 May 2022, only days before Edelman published his blogpost warning of the growing divide between democracy and autocracy, he signed a $787,500 (£652,609) contract to provide the Saudi ministry of culture with “PR and communications services”.
