According to The Guardian, Meryl Streep, JK Rowling and Zadie Smith have all added their names to an open letter calling on the United Nations to investigate the death of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. More than 100 artists, writers and activists have shown support on the international day to end impunity for crimes against journalists, a month after the Washington Post journalist was killed at the Saudi consulate in Turkey. “The violent murder of a prominent journalist and commentator on foreign soil is a grave violation of human rights and a disturbing escalation of the crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia, whose government in recent years has jailed numerous writers, journalists, human rights advocates and lawyers in a sweeping assault on free expression and association,” the letter reads. It’s addressed to António Guterres, the UN secretary general, and calls on him to initiate an independent investigation into what really happened to Khashoggi. Since his disappearance, Turkish officials have said they have evidence that he was dismembered and his body was dissolved by a squad of Saudi assassins. Yet Saudi officials still claim it was the result of a fistfight and an interrogation gone wrong. “The murder of a journalist inside a diplomatic facility would constitute nothing less than an act of state terror intended to intimidate journalists, dissidents and exiled critics the world over,” the letter reads. The full article can be read over at The Guardian.
