Freedom Forward in the News:
“’Businesses that partner with Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship are enabling a brutal government that uses its power to smash the democratic aspirations of people both inside and outside of Saudi Arabia’s borders,’ Sunjeev Bery, the executive director of Freedom Forward, told Middle East Eye.
“At a time when the Saudi monarchy continues to imprison women’s rights activists like Loujain al-Hathloul, no company should be lending their credibility to the dictatorship’s Future Investment Initiative.”
“… Bery said that the International Monetary Fund and the news network CNBC had confirmed to Freedom Forward that it would not be participating in the event. However, CNN news anchor Erin Burnett has faced criticism on social media after it was confirmed she would be participating … ‘It is astonishing that a major media institution would patronise a dictator’s propaganda event, especially when that dictator has imprisoned and killed journalists and writers,’ Bery said.”
“…’Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has had a profoundly negative impact on humanity,’ Bery told MEE. ‘The Saudi dictatorship has supported dictatorships and blocked democracy in multiple Muslim and Arab-majority countries, condemning millions of people across the Middle East to repression, poverty and state corruption. To make matters worse, the Saudi monarchy’s oil company Aramco is one of the planet’s biggest drivers of climate change, condemning millions more to the dramatic shifts in climate that will adversely affect the global poor for decades to come.'”