Monthly Archives: February 2008

Free Fouad Rally at Saudi Embassy in Washington

Demanding the release of detained Saudi blogger Fouad Al Farhan, the Hands Across the Middle East Support Alliance (HAMSA) has called for a vigil today in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC from 13:00-14:45. If you cannot attend, please take a moment to join over 1,200 other people and send a letter to Saudi officials calling for Fouad’s release.

On a related note, all bloggers are invited to participate in “Fouad’s Week,” a week long event in which we are going to embrace “We Are All Fouads” as a slogan. The event will take place between Saturday Feb 9th and Friday Feb 15th. You can read more on the goals of this event and how you can take part here.

Walk the Walk

The patient education course I attended on Monday was OK. It suffered a lack of organization and they were lucky the number of participants was small. It could have been chaotic, and it didn’t help that the presentations were lame. Not much to say about the sessions, and I’m pretty sure you are not even remotely interested in knowing stuff such as the fact that 24% of the Saudi population have diabetes and 28% of those are not even aware they are diabetics!

But what I want to say is that I was really impressed by the female pharmacists. Despite being locked kept in the upper deck of the otherwise mostly empty auditorium, they were very vocal and gave the speakers a hard time with tough questions and critical remarks. Fellow male students tried to keep up with them (or was it to get the girls’ attention? ;-) but to no avail.

After the end of the course, and since the weather was nice and sunny, I went to take a walk inside the King Abdulaziz Historical Center area, one of my favorite places in Riyadh. I had a good time but I missed a friend of mine that I used to enjoy walking and taking pictures with. Speaking of pictures, I have taken some many of these during my walk; a couple of them are shown above and you can find the rest here.

What Keeps You Going

Living in the so-called Kingdom of Humanity, one can’t help but wonder: is there a way to escape all the depressing news coming our way? It is hard to ignore all the disturbing stories of injustice and discrimination that keep jumping before our eyes. But at the same time, you don’t want all of this to get to you. You want to be happy and you want to be able to enjoy your day.

Sometimes you wonder: why do they make it so hard to love your own country? Frustrated and angry as you may be, deep down you know how much you love it and you are proud of it.

It is said that hope is such a thin rope to hold our lives on, but it seems that’s all what we’ve got these days. It is the thing that keeps us going: it gives Abdul-Rahman Al-Lahim the strength to keep on fighting, it gives Wajiha Al-Huwaider and Fawzia Al Oyouni the courage to keep on rallying, and it gives people like Fouad and Hadeel a reason to keep on blogging and speak out.

Back (sort of)

Done with the finals and back to blogging. I will probably spend most of my spring break here in Riyadh because I have some stuff to do. I miss my family and friends in the east, but I’m not complaining. On Monday, I will be attending a course in patient education at the lectures auditorium of King Abdulaziz Historical Center. As for the rest of the week, I will be hanging out with friends and doing some press interviews. I will leave town next Sunday, relax for a few days in the EP, and then get back here for the start of the 2nd semester.