The dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi is still missing and is believed to have been detained by the Saudi government when he went to their consulate in Istanbul. The New York Times reports:

A veteran journalist from Saudi Arabia who has become a sharp critic of the country’s leadership was detained Tuesday in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to his fiancée and a close friend.

According to the report, Mr. Khashoggi expressed his fear that he might be detained by the Saudi government, and this now seems to be what has happened to him. This is an escalation in the Saudi government’s crackdown on dissent by kidnapping such a well-known critic in another country. Coming on the heels of charging an economist with terrorism, rounding up female political dissidents, and pursuing the death penalty for peaceful political protesters, this latest outrage has shown the Saudi regime to be an even more obnoxious and abusive authoritarian government than it has been in the past.

Jason Rezaian wrote about the apparent detention of Mr. Khashoggi, who has been a regular contributor to the Post:

Detaining a well-known journalist and commentator, in a foreign country and without cause, would be another reminder of the hypocrisy and emptiness of the promise to open Saudi society.

If the Saudi government does have Mr. Khashoggi in custody in Istanbul, they should release him without delay. If they have forced him to return to Saudi Arabia against his will, he should be let go and permitted to leave the country.

Detaining Mr. Khashoggi for his criticism fits Mohammed bin Salman’s dreary pattern of treating potential allies as enemies. While he was critical of the crown prince’s crackdowns and more recently called for an end to the war on Yemen, Khashoggi was also quite sympathetic to the government’s stated goals of “reform” and said so many times in his writings. The fact that he felt compelled to leave the country was a sign that something was seriously wrong with the crown prince’s plans for the kingdom, and over the last year we have seen just how destructive and counterproductive Mohammed bin Salman can be. Snatching a prominent critic like this just compounds the damage that the crown prince has already done, and it is one more piece of evidence that his detractors were right about him all along.