Category Human Rights

Fake Posters

Moleculo has made these awesome fake posters:

You are invited to Riyadh International Cinema Festival. Live the real experience inside the theater.

Jeddah Metro: Commuting has become smarter.

Dear female citizen: It’s time for you to drive. You can do it.

Your duty as a citizen is to tell us about any unemployed person. Unemployment has been ended, completely.

The Grand Musical Event: the Saudi Opera, led by maestro Fahad ibn al-Balad. Now, at Buraida Opera Theatre.

Today’s Links

  • AP says that security forces has confiscated books of Abdullah al-Hamed, a well-known reformer, from stalls at Riyadh Book Fair. MOCI, unsurprisingly, denied that they know anything about it.
  • Speaking of security and censorship, rumor has it that starting this Tuesday BBM service will be disabled in Saudi Arabia. CITC has asked RIM to let them monitor the network but it seems unlikely that the Canadian company would allow it.

Today’s Links

  • Shoura Council finally decided to open its doors to citizens. Shoura said it is ready now to hear the voices of concerned citizens through its Human Rights and Petitions Committee. The King is scheduled to deliver the annual royal speech launching the second year of the the Council’s fifth term Sunday. Unlike Saudi Gazette, I don’t think it would be anything like the State of the Union address.
  • In other news, the King has received the Jeddah Investigation report. I’m eager to hear the news of some heads rolling. I’m also curious to read the report but I doubt it will be made public.
  • Okay, so Fox News published a story on Saudi bloggers, but as SUSRIS blog correctly notes, the story has some holes. No surprise here, I guess.
  • I disagree with almost everything published in Lojainiat, but blocking the website is simply something that I’m not okay with. CITC should stop acting as policemen on our brains.
  • Typical case of Saudi flirting using text messages. A pretty lame attempt if you ask me. But hey, I never been into this kind of thing so maybe you don’t want to take my word for it.

Kill Me Now

For someone who would probably enjoy the lifestyle of a caveman, Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak has an impressive ability to occasionally make news headlines with his ridiculous, albeit dangerous, fatwas. His latest fatwa called for opponents of the kingdom’s strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas.

Some people think the best way to deal with this fatwa is to simply ignore it, because the more media attention it gets the more weight it will carry. I disagree. It might be true that al-Barrak is an old man who is still living in the past, but failing to address his fatwa might lead to serious consequences. This guy has a loyal following who admire him and regard his opinions highly.

What if one of his enthusiastic fans decided to act upon this fatwa and killed somebody? What if someone from those who spoke in favor of mixing like justice minister Shaikh Mohammed al-Eisa, Shaikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi, or Shaikh Ahmed Bin Baz got killed over this?

That is unlikely to happen, but it remains a possibility nevertheless. As Ebtihal Mubarak tweeted earlier today, “there is a huge number of unemployed men who are agitated, and it’s easy to rally them using the argument that the government is focusing on women and mixing of genders while ignoring them.”

I think all those concerned should speak out against this fatwa and denounce al-Barrak. The official religious establishment, namely the Council of Senior Ulema, should take a stand and make a statement here. But based on their recent history with the mixing at KAUST drama, I’m pretty sure they won’t say a single word about this.

I hate to repeat myself, but here is what I said two years ago when al-Barrak released another one of his insane fatwas:

I can imagine that neither the government nor the official religious establishment would speak out on this issue, but if they fail to address this properly then they should stop whining about extremism and how terrorists are simply a “misguided group.” It is this kind of dangerous messages that feed extremism and donate fuel to terrorists to continue their lethal destructive acts. Keeping silent and later blaming “external influences” for what happens here will be a hard sell…

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.