Hacker News Reader

Comment by thisisit | Hacker News Reader

> The purge began overnight Saturday, initially catching 11 princes and 38 officials, military officers and business leaders. They are being held at five-star hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.

Really getting the royal treatment even during probe. Btw, is this in any way related to the pending Aramco IPO?

View on HN

Detained in a 5* hotel probably feels like prison would be for most of us. In the end, prison is about not having any freedom and that will be the case for them as well. A nice bed doesn't help much if you have no say about your life.

> Btw, is this in any way related to the pending Aramco IPO?

More likely the handover to the new crown prince (MBS). The IPO could be cancelled anyway but both are driven by MBS to modernise Saudi Arabia and make it ready for a future without oil.

I get what you are saying to an extent, but really, if I had to serve time a 5-star hotel vs. a 6x8 cell... yeah, I know what I would choose.

Perhaps a 5* for them is equivalent to a 6x8 jail cell for us. I would imagine they usually get the best service on the planet, not the best service available for average people.

That's exactly what I wanted to say. For us, living in flats or houses and owning up to two cars (and no jets), a cell is probably as much of a restriction on our comfort as a luxury hotel room is for a Saudi prince.

That doesn't mean that they shouldn't go to a proper jail if convicted but I'm sure they already feel punished.

There's a very serious risk that some or all of these princes are going to get executed. That's how Saudi Arabia does things. It's unlikely they will all be set free to go back to their old lives, it would pose too great of a risk to the new power structure MbS and the king are trying to put into place. For example it appears they're going to confiscate Al-Waleed bin Talal's assets. There's no chance he's going to be set free after this, to then go overseas and cause havoc for the regime.

I don't know. I think this is another demonstration of Saudi Arabia's unfair and unjust society than how you're portraying it.

Suspect that treating royalty like common prisoners would be viewed as "cruel and unusual punishment" by segments of Saudi Arabian society which have relatively little issue with the principle of mass arrests of political rivals (or indeed the cruel and unusual punishments the kingdom does carry out)

This is an aspect of the proposed narrative I don't understand.

How on Earth is turning the country into an absolute dictatorship, with the rule of law utterly disregarded, supposed to help Saudi Arabia move forward? The last things I would want to do financially would be to put money into a state where the local dictator has a proven willingness to seize assets on a whim.

I think there is a deeper question here, and I don't think anyone has the answer:

Are there societies or cultures which are not yet at a stage where democracy is the best government form?

Because this is what it boils down to.

In theory it would be that they believe they can kill two birds with one stone.

1) Take out competing power lines in the family. As a kicker they get to seize upwards of $300 billion that can go into the remake-Saudi-Arabia-fund for Mohammad Bin Salman (likely several times what they'd get initially from the Aramco IPO).

2) Neutralize concerns over that by covering it in a guise of cleaning up the kingdom. Most likely the kingdom has always operated by these means and they're simply throwing a switch and choosing to selectively prosecute.

Their plan bets on the second part being an acceptable cover story. They're betting some percentage of people will buy the premise outright. They're betting some percentage of people will find the cover story good enough to provide their own personal cover to continue working with the Saudis ('just give me some kind of rationale I can take to my people'). It would all rest on the notion that given enough time and stability afterward, that the vast majority of people that do business with Saudi Arabia now, will let this slide.

Dictatorships can be extremely good or extremely bad. Anti corruption moves, if true, are much easier to pull off with bureaucracy (and laws) out of the way. I'm hoping it will go back to the days of the French or Ottoman empires.

From pictures I've seen in online media [1], it seems they're sleeping on the floor in the foyer, not in suites. Probably works better for surveillance purposes to have them all in one place.

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5055923/Arrested-Sau...

TBH looks fishy to me. Article claims there's 10 princes and 38 officials. But there's hardly 5 beds on that video, which could just as easily be stuffed with cushions. And why are there guns lying on the corner with the guard being on the other side?

Looks like PR work while they stay in their nice rooms.

Those are actually soldiers guarding the Ritz. Each of those princes has armed guards on their payroll so the government needs to blockade the hotel

These guys are extremely powerful people. Even under house arrest, MBS risks assassination and worse for such a bold move. The least they could do is keep them detained comfortably.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com