Category Human Rights

Poor Job of HRC

I know some people think that human rights organizations in Saudi Arabia are a joke, and sadly sometimes they are, but I don’t think these organizations are useless. That’s why I feel so disappointed when I see that the Human Rights Commission (HRC) is still doing a poor job, and that its new president Bandar al-Iban has so far proven he is not all that different from his predecessor. In today’s Arab News, he talks about how his organization helped a woman called Fatima to put her abusive husband in jail.

That’s well and good, but it is certainly not the kind of work that HRC should be doing. As a government commission with the responsibility of ensuring that other government bodies are respecting human rights they are expected to offer an organized effort on a much higher scale.

I understand that HRC is not exactly working in Sweden, but I always wish they would try harder and go the extra mile. They need not to look too far: their peers at the National Society of Human Rights have been doing a nice job with their reports and occasional statements. It is hardly enough, but at least it’s a start. Am I expecting too much of HRC? Maybe, and the reason is because I think they are in a position where they could, and should, get much more done.

Dude, What’s with the Lashing?

Another day, another outrageous lashing sentence.

On Saturday, a court in Jeddah sentenced 22-year-old female journalist Roazanna al-Yamai to 60 lashes for her alleged involvement in the infamous case of Mazen Abdul-Jawad, aka the TV sex braggart. Few minutes ago, AP reported that King Abdullah has waived the sentence and ordered the case be referred to the legal committee at the Ministry of Culture and Information. Well, this should have happened without a royal intervention, but I’m relieved the sentence will not be carried out.

This case aside, I am astonished by the very liberal use of lashing sentences by our right honorable judges. Is this some sort of fetish, as Asmaa once said? Do these sentences say something about struggle to reform the judicial system? Personally, I think that except for the few cases explicitly specified in Quran, lashing should be stopped once and for all. No human being should be given the power to inflect this kind of punishment on another human being, simply.

NSHR Condemns Flogging without Trial

As much as I was annoyed by the hooliganism that we have seen in Khobar on the National Day, I was much more annoyed by how the government decided to handle the situation. However, I’m relieved to see the National Society for Human Rights weigh in and release a statement condemning the manner in which these young men were punished. Flogging them publicly like that without a trial is wrong and in clear violation of the law. Now of course the language of the statement could be stronger, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Many Questions, No Answers

Last Wednesday was the 79th National Day of Saudi Arabia. Most of what has been said, written, and sung, focused on celebrating what has been achieved over the relatively short life of this country. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in what we have accomplished, and we certainly have many things to be proud of. But what I’m proud of the most are the people, the citizens who put their country first, those who their pride won’t stop them from seeing the shortcomings and work to rectify them. I salute those who live by the ideals of this nation, and find the courage in themselves to stop, think and reflect, and then say: we can do better than this, we must do better that this, we are better than this.

That’s why when I read that groups of young men in different parts of the country decided to celebrate the National Day by acting like hooligans, I was disturbed but not surprised or shocked. As Qusay said, we can probably attribute this behaviour to many reasons, including the lack of discipline. But the fact that these terrible acts happened on this day in particular raises some troubling questions: have we failed to instill any sense of national belonging in our youth? What does it mean for those boys to be Saudi and how can they express that? Although we have a great country, we are yet to construct a plural identity and make those boys realize that what they were vandalizing is actually theirs. Our national identity has been tied to individuals, tribes and religion among other things, but never to the country which we all should belong.

Talking about nationalism is easy, but at least some of us know that it takes much more than a bland weekly tarbiya wataniya class and a few songs to produce upright citizens. People belong to the country only when their rights are protected. People belong to the country only when they have a say in how it is run. People belong to the country only when they know they can dream and that their dreams may someday come true.

At the very same moments when the hooligans were destroying storefronts in Riyadh and Khobar, a dream of our King was coming true in Thuwal. The $100m inauguration of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, aka KAUST, was attended by more than 3,000 guests, including world leaders, prominent Saudis, and Nobel laureates. The launch of KAUST promises a new dawn for Saudi Arabia, the beginning of a future based on knowledge and enlightenment. That’s the promise, but will we ever come to realize it or even just come near it? How can we make sure that KAUST will not end up, in the words of Rasheed Aboulsamh, as a west coast Aramco enclave, where freedom and progressive thinking prevail while the rest of the country remains hostage to a religious dogma controlled by a select few?

The celebrations of the National Day, the opening of KAUST, the acts of vandalism, and everything else that happened over the course of this past year left me with many conflicted feelings: aspiration and disappointment, hope and despair. But more than anything, this 23rd of September left me with many questions, and no answers.

Think

Shiekh Mohammed al-Nujaimi makes me laugh. No, not because he is funny, but because many of his statements are simply laughable.

Few weeks ago, when Human Rights Watch criticized Saudi Arabia for detaining thousands of terror suspects without charge or trial, he came out saying he has strong evidence that HRW is a zionist organization, because according to him they overlook Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Well, Israelis think that HRW is “maniacally anti-Israel” because the organization have recently done some fund rising efforts in Saudi Arabia. Go figure.

Something else: while debate on stopping all commercial activity during prayer times continues, one local news website has decided to advocate for this pause by closing the site for 20 minutes, five times a day. If visitors to Aen Hail visit the site during prayers, they are met with a message “Closed for Prayer” in Arabic along with a countdown to the end of the prayer break at the bottom of the page.

What does al-Nujaimi has to say about this? “Closing a Saudi website for half-an-hour during obligatory prayers is a noble Islamic act,” he said. “It’s free from any search for fame or unacceptable rigidness. It contributes to reviving the habit of individuals praying on time.” Let’s think about it. Prayer times differ depending on where you are. What if I’m in a city where it is not prayer time yet? “What if the person wishing to surf the page is a non-Muslim?” as Amal Zahid asked in al-Watan daily.

The two examples mentioned above can be forgiven or ignored, but to go and label everyone who disagrees with him as traitors who serve a foreign agenda is just unacceptable. Al-Nujaimi probably suffers from logorrhea, but that does not mean he is excused from at least trying to think before he opens his big mouth.