Nicholas Kristof: I hope she wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Right now she’s being waterboaded and assaulted. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Saturday, January 26, 2019 [NYTimes.com/Kristof »]( [Loujain al-Hathloul in London in 2017.]( Loujain al-Hathloul in London in 2017. Nina Manandhar Take a look at that woman above. Her name is Loujain al-Hathloul, she is 29 years old, and for years she has fought for equal rights for women in her native Saudi Arabia. As a result, she is in prison, and our Saudi allies reportedly have waterboarded her, flogged her, subjected her to electric shocks and threatened to rape and kill her and throw her body into the sewage system. When her parents visited her, they found that [she was shaking uncontrollably](. It’s great that President Trump is speaking up for human rights in Venezuela, but he needs to speak up about the torture of people like Hathloul. No one in the Trump administration has even publicly mentioned Hathloul’s name. More broadly, Trump should end his embrace of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. Many Saudis oppose MBS, but Trump is protecting him — and the result could be that the world is stuck with MBS for another half-century. Hathloul is one of 10 women’s rights activists imprisoned in Saudi Arabia under the crown prince, and at least four have been tortured. One woman was tortured so brutally that she has tried to commit suicide. [My column today]( is a plea for world attention to Hathloul and the other political prisoners; I urge the Nobel Peace Prize committee to consider giving her the award this year. MBS already seems to have gotten away with murdering my friend Jamal Khasoggi, the columnist for The Washington Post; let’s not let him get away with further torture and imprisonment of women’s rights activists. [Here’s my take.]( I know people will ask what they can do to help Loujain. I don’t have great ideas, but I do think that more attention to these cases raises the cost of torture and abuse. Likewise, I think calls or letters to the Saudi diplomatic missions help, as does social media buzz. Rep. Adam Schiff wrote to the Saudi ambassador asking about the case, and I think more inquiries from members of Congress are useful (because Saudi leaders are concerned about changing sentiment on the Hill and the impact on weapons transfers), so consider encouraging your House member or senators to make similar inquiries. Venezuela, once an oil-rich country, has virtually collapsed under disastrous leadership that included execrable economic governance, social polarization, and the undermining of national institutions (some of which should sound familiar). I’ve been denied a visa for the last two and a half years but have watched as the health system has disintegrated and 3 million people have fled the country. Bravo to Colombia for treating the Venezuelan refugees with compassion. Some Democrats have assumed that the Venezuelan opposition leader, 35-year-old Juan Guaido, must be a far-right nut, because Trump backs him. But that’s not the case at all. Guaido is from humble origins and has shown an impressive ability to bring people together. I think he would run the country better than the current president, Nicolás Maduro — but I don’t know how we get there. I will continue trying to find a way into the country. I was at Davos this week for the World Economic Forum and moderated an interesting panel on modern slavery in the fishing industry. I think many consumers don’t realize how often fishing boats, especially in Asia, simply kidnap young men, throw them on boats, and force them to work for years without letting them back on shore or paying them. This disproportionately happens to marginalized groups, such as Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar, partly because port police are never very interested in punishing boat owners who enslave Rohingya. The good news is that under international pressure, Thailand has cleaned up its act considerably. [Here’s my column]( about Saudi Arabia, its mad prince, and the brave young woman locked inside a prison there for dreaming of a more equal society. Her family has suffered intensely, and she and they should know how many people admire Loujain’s moral leadership and deplore her treatment. [Here’s the column.]( ADVERTISEMENT You can connect with me on [Facebook](. If you have friends who might enjoy this newsletter, forward this email or tell them they can [sign up here](. Send feedback or tech questions to newsletters@nytimes.com. Recent Columns Revolution 60 [The Embargo on Cuba Failed. Let’s Move On.]( No one, particularly ordinary Cubans, is benefiting from the 60-year feud. 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