Author Archives: Ahmed

  • Countries are built upon laws, not fatwa. After last year’s cabinet reshuffle, some people started to refer to King Abdullah’s reforms as the fourth Saudi state. Ahmed Adnan thinks King Abdullah can become the third founder of the third Saudi state, but first he has to replace the legitimacy of ideology with the legitimacy of citizens.
  • There is a talk of establishing a media zone in KAEC. It sounds like a joke to me, and Sabria Johar agrees. She thinks Saudi media is still pretty immature, and that’s why such an effort will be like putting lipstick on a donkey and call it a thing of beauty.
  • Abdulaziz Khoja, the minister of culture and information, says citizen journalism lacks credibility and fact-checking. Yeah, right. And local newspapers, that your excellency must approve of their editors, are full of credibility and fact-checking. Hey, how’s that new e-journalism law of yours is going btw?

Back (to basics)

The past few weeks were difficult, but I’m glad they are over and behind me now. As you can see, I return with a new design (if you follow the blog using a feeds reader you may want to visit the site to check it out). The redesign is based on Sandbox, and it’s a throwback to the minimalism that inspired the look of Saudi Jeans in its first two years.

Longtime readers probably remember when I used to post a bunch of links to all kinds of stuff everyday. I kept doing something like this through the “shared items” on the right sidebar, but it was not exactly the same. As an experiment, I’m reintroducing the daily links in the main column of the blog with occasional context and/or commentary. However, these linky posts will not be open to comments initially. Based on how the experiment goes, this may or may not continue to be the case.

I’m mostly satisfied with the new design but it’s still kind of rough around the edges, so if you run into anything funny please let me know.

Down with the Tribe

After four years of suffering, the Supreme Court in Riyadh has finally put an end to the plight of Fatima al-Azzaz and Mansour al-Taimani, the couple who were forcibly divorced at the request of Fatima’s brothers for tribal reasons. According to the couple’s lawyer Ahmed al-Sudairi, the Supreme Court has reversed the ruling of Jouf Court that divorced Fatima and Mansour.

Abdulrahman al-Lahem, the couple’s former lawyer, wrote in his blog that he was pleased by the news. Al-Lahem hoped that the ruling would usher a serious beginning for an institutional reform of the judicial system in Saudi Arabia. He also praised the role of media and blogs in highlighting cases like this one.

Personally, I’m happy to see this issue come to a happy ending. Mansour, Fatima, and their children have literally gone through hell over the past four years, and it’s a relief to see the family finally come together again. This is a victory not just for them and their lawyers, but for all human rights activists in the country who supported their cause.

In the words of Fouzia al-Oyouni, it is “a victory for the nation over the tribe.”

PS. I’m not officially back, but I could not not blog about this.

Lull

It’s been almost a year since I took a break, so I think it’s about time to take some time off. This would be longer than usual, but I’m afraid it’s necessary and much needed. There will be no blogging for the rest of the month, but I shall be back in February with new content and probably a new design too.

On Alienating Opponents

I respect the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR). Compared to the other human rights organization in the country, I believe that they have been doing a decent job. For instance, I was pleasantly surprised by their latest report. But even NSHR occasionally manage to get on my nerves too.

NSHR still lacks a stance on issues like women’s driving. One of the founding members of the Society was recently asked why they don’t have a stance on the issue and he gave an interesting answer. He said some members of NSHR supports women’s driving, while some other members don’t. We don’t want to alienate those.

Say what?!

I understand that women’s driving is a controversial issue. But I believe it shouldn’t be. To me, the issue boils down to this: freedom of movement is a basic human right. Therefore, you would think it’s obvious what kind of stance NSHR should be taking. Any member who has a different opinion can then express their reservation on this stance, or they can quit. It’s that simple, really.

But that’s just me. And I would gladly admit that I know very little about the inside politics of the few NGOs operating in Saudi Arabia. So people of NSHR, if any of you is reading this, please enlighten me.

Beautiful Mess

I hear that officials at the Ministry of Culture and Information (MOCI) are forging ahead with their dumb idea to regulate so-called electronic media. Asbar, a research center based in Riyadh that includes several members of Shourac Council on its board (conflict of interests, anyone?), has been working on a draft for the new law.

This Saturday, they hosted a discussion panel about the proposed law where they met with representatives from MOCI, CITC, KACST, and the Ministry of Interior as well as some government and media consultants.

Ironically, some owners of news websites are actually pushing for this law. They argue that it would make it easier for them to get funding and make money from advertising. What about their independence and freedom that could be threatened by the new law? Well, apparently these things are not high on their agenda.

I previously said regulation by the government is not the answer, and I stand by that opinion. News websites should operate under the same laws that regulate traditional media. If these laws are old and outdated, then they should be amended, updated, or even overhauled and rewritten altogether if necessary.

Although I find the government’s obsession with control hard to understand, I have to say it is not unusual. Someone should tell them that their constant attempts to police the internet are useless, really. Why get yourselves into this mess? Yes, it is a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess. Just leave it that way.

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