In final column, Jamal Khashoggi stresses the importance of 'free expression' in the Arab world

The Washington Post published Jamal Khashoggi's presumptive final column on Wednesday, with a somber note from Global Opinions editor Karen Attiah.

Attiah wrote that she received the column, titled "What the Arab World Needs Most is Free Expression," from Khashoggi's translator and assistant one day after he was reported missing in Istanbul earlier this month. The Post didn't publish it right away, Attiah explained, hoping she and Khashoggi could edit the column together, but "now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for the Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for."

In the column, Khashoggi discusses the 2018 Freedom of the World report, which declares that just one country in the Arab world, Tunisia, can be classified as "free." Three other countries are "partly free" and the rest are "not free," which Khashoggi found unacceptable. "Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed," he said, leaving them "unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives."

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He wrote about the crackdown on writers and newspapers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the importance of providing a "platform for Arab voices." People are facing poverty, poor education, and mismanagement, he concluded, and if there could be a forum "isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face." Read the entire column at The Washington Post.