In a report released this morning, the New York Times revealed obtained documents that confirm the political relationship between Saudi Arabia and one of the largest consultancy firms in the world, McKinsey & Company.
According to the report, the McKinsey firm has provided a nine-page report to the Saudi government identifying influential Saudi figures who opposed or criticized the Kingdom or the royals on Twitter, in order to take action against them.
The report included names of three top influential critics of the Saudi government who were “driving the conversation” on Twitter. The three dissidents were later targeted by the Saudi authorities either by detention or by spyware to shut down their social media accounts.
Among them was the writer Khalid al-Alkami, who has been in detention since September 2017. Omar Abdulaziz, a young dissident living in Canada had eight of his friends imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, in what is believed to be related to his views expressed on social media.
The report revealed by the NYT sparked an international outrage who, following the Khashoggi killing, are raising campaigns to cut any relations between their governments and Saudi Arabia.
Omar Abdulaziz, who has his name included in the NYT report, tweeted about the report blaming the consultancy firm for the harm he has faced.
McKinsey’s relations with the Saudi government is not news, since its work involves providing reports and expert advice. However, providing names of dissidents for a government that has been jailing activists for their opinions is ethically outrageous, suggesting unusual ties between the consultancy and the higher echelons of Saudi Arabia itself.
In response, McKinsey released a statement denying the NYT allegations claiming the report they provided for the Saudi government was “a brief overview of publicly available information looking at social media usage” and it was not prepared for any “government entity”.
This comes at a time when the topic of the Saudi-US national mutual interests are becoming more of a moral dilemma in the US among supporters and critics, with remarks made by Trump highlighting the US conflict of interests.
Read More: Tom Friedman Has Compromised and Damaged His Legacy Over Yemen
