A sign that designates a stretch of New Hampshire Avenue as “Jamal Khashoggi Way” were unveiled in a ceremony Wednesday. The sign is located outside the Saudi Arabian embassy, making permanent what was once a protest stunt in 2018 by veteran activist Claude Taylor.
The DC Council voted unanimously last December to rename the stretch of road between Virginia Avenue and F Street, Northwest, for the Washington Post columnist, who the CIA says was murdered on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi was an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime and was brutally killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.
DC has a long tradition of trolling foreign governments with changes to street names—the stretch of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the Russian embassy was renamed Boris Nemtsov Plaza, for example. Taylor installed a sign that re-renamed the embassy’s front door as “President Zelensky Way” on March 7.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
