Introduction

The brutal murder of the Saudi dissident journalistJamal Khashoggi in October 2018 and the eventsleading up to his death illustrate the combined useof traditional and new authoritarian practices inthe Middle East and North Africa (MENA). On 2October 2018 Khashoggi entered the IstanbulConsulate of Saudi Arabia where he was tortured,killed and his body dismembered. Research by theUniversity of Toronto's Citizen Lab (2018, 2019) andstatements made by Omar Abdulaziz (Loveday andZakaria 2018), another Saudi dissident and friend ofKhashoggi, showed the key role played by Pegasus, amalicious tracking software developed by theIsrael-based NSO Group, in the events leading to themurder of the Saudi journalist. The investigationCitizen Lab conducted showed that Abdulaziz's phonewas infected with the spyware, which would haveallowed Saudi officials to access his privateconversations with his contacts, includingKhashoggi. Abdulaziz revealed that he was in regularphone contact with Khashoggi about organising socialmedia activism to counter the influence of Saudipro-government trolls on the internet.

Extra-judicial killings of dissidents, alongsidesurveillance, imprisonment, intimidation, tortureand ill-treatment of dissidents, as well as otherpractices to suppress dissent and control activists,opposition parties, the judiciary and the media,have long existed in the region. The chapters inthis book demonstrate that, even if they may not beas spectacularly violent as in the Khashoggikilling, many MENA regimes continue to deploytried-and-tested authoritarian practices to controlsociety and suppress dissent. However, thesehistorically-established practices have also beenrefashioned, often in innovative ways, by MENAregimes to respond to growing dissent in theirsocieties. These refashioned authoritarian practicesare often enabled by new digital surveillance tools.While the killing of Khashoggi, which combinesmurder and dismemberment with digital spying, is oneof the most shocking examples of the mixed nature ofcontemporary authoritarian practices, other MENAregimes are also increasingly relying on newdigitally-based authoritarian practices such associal media surveillance, the use of malicioussoftware, the mobilisation of troll armies anddissemination of fake news on broadcast and socialmedia. As a result, MENA regimes often use a mix ofhistorically-established practices and newauthoritarian ones in conjunction with one anotherto form what Topak (2019; this book 2022) calls an‘authoritarian assemblage’.