Category Libs and Cons

Speak of the Devil…

That was fast. Only a few minutes after posting this, look what I found: Hamza Al Mozainy is very disappointed at Sheikh Salman Al Awdah for an article about Eid Al Fitr that he wrote for Al Jazirah daily which included what can be considered hate speech. Al Mozainy has denounced in particular the use of the term ‘raifdah’ to describe Shiite Muslims. “[I]t is not meant as a description but rather discrimination against a group of Muslim Saudi citizens,” he said.

Just like Al Mozainy, I found it very surprising that Al Awdah, a sheikh that has become known for his moderation and tolerance, would say something like that. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t some sort of a misunderstanding or misquoting, so I went to Al Jazirah website to read the article myself. You can find it here, and unfortunately that paragraph Al Muzaini quoted is there.

Still, I had a feeling that there was something wrong. I went to Islam Today, a website supervised by Salman Al Awdah himself, where you can find most of his published articles and media appearances. I found the same article, but the paragraph about the Shiites was no where to be found. What is going on here? Did Al Awdah write that paragraph or not? Is it possible that an editor in Al Jazirah has added the paragraph to the article without the knowledge of Al Awdah?

In an email exchange earlier this morning, Al Mozainy told me it is unlikely that someone at Al Jazirah would have the audacity to edit the article. However, “it is the responsibility of Al Awdah to clarify this,” he added. I have emailed Sheikh Salman Al Awdah asking about the issue and I have yet to receive a response. If he responded I will update this post.

Jeddah: Gurlz vs. Guyz

jeddah_boysI have said it before and I shall say it again and again: those Jeddawis never fail to impress me. Their latest is a 12-minute documentary featuring young men and women who talk about their views about the opposite sex and dating.

As I have said in a recent post, dating is a risky business in Saudi Arabia, and to have a documentary discussing it this way is truly amazing. The short film is produced by Izzaty Islamy, a two-year-old girl’s social club that sponsors monthly discussions and has conducted debate events at Dar Al-Hekma College and the International Medical Center. I can’t wait to get my hands on the film and watch it; and since it’s only 12-minute long the group might consider uploading it to YouTube or something like that.

Divide and Conquer

After this, one can’t say he could not see that coming:

The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice have asked the Municipality of Medina to segregate women from men in a sidewalk in the area behind the maternity hospital. The Commission have noticed mixing of sexes on the location and suggested making another sidewalk for men away from women’s sidewalk, Eng. Mohammed Al Ali, deputy GS of the municipality, told Okaz.

Oh and btw, news agencies have already picked up the news and it’s flying all over the civilized world now. Nice going, lunatics.

Activists Release New Statement

A group of political and human rights activists in Saudi Arabia have sent an open letter to the head of Human Rights Commission (HRC), the government body concerned with human rights, asking the commission to act according to its responsibilities regarding the reformists who were detained last February.

The letter, which was also sent to the head of Shoura Council, the minister of justice and the head of NSHR, asked HRC to handle the case of the detainees and ensure to grant them their lawful rights which were violated upon their detention. It also pointed out to the arrests of other activists known for their social status and contributions who also underwent the same violations.

“These actions by some bodies violate basic human rights, and do not go well with the reforming steps led by King Abdullah,” the letter read, but it does not go as far as naming these bodies. It does not, however, take much thinking to realize that the letter talks about the Ministry of Interior, which said the arrest were related to allegation of financing terrorism.

The letter was signed by 76 activists, including many well-known reform figures such as Ali al-Domaini, Matruk al-Faleh and Khalid al-Umair. The list of signatories also included many Shiite activists such as Najib al-Khonaizi, Mohammed al-Ali and Jaafar al-Shayeb.

However, as Abu-Joori pointed out, the list reveals the absence of any prominent religious leaders. “It indicates the ignorance in which the leaders of Sahwa and Islamists in Saudi Arabia are plagued with when it comes to human rights issues.” On the other hand, many of the so-called liberals are absent from this list, he added.

I believe all the demands in the letter are fair and the detainees should be granted their rights according to the law immediately. But it is anyone’s guess if the receivers of this letter would actually respond to it. Let’s wait and see, but my advice is not to get your hopes too hight. I, for one, again, is not holding my breath.

Liberal Blog Hacked. How Pathetic!

I was skimming through my feeds in Google Reader while watching a football match on TV when I saw this:

hacked

It looks like some muttawa kids got too much free time in their hands and they decided to use it to do some cyber jihad. They have hacked a Saudi liberal blog written in Arabic and erased its content completely. The pictured above statement says “any attempt to regain the ownership of the blog or anything like it will be hacked.”

I think the original owner of the blog should contact Jeeran, who host his blog, about this and they probably would be able to return it to him as well as restoring his posts. I don’t have much to say about it, but: seriously kids, this is pathetic.

UPDATE: The posts are back now on the blog, but all of them carry today’s date instead of their original posting dates. I don’t know what happened and the blogger doesn’t offer an explanation (yet), but I’m glad it’s back.

UPDATE 2: The blogger has responded to a comment I left on his latest post saying this happened after he was working on the blog at an internet cafe and then left without logging out. He offers more details here, and says he will write about this incident soon.

Activists Seek Establishment of Women’s Rights Body

A group of women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia said they have applied to the Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSA) for permission to establish an independent civil society organization under the name “Ansar al-Mar’a” (Supporters of Women), AlArabiya.net reports today. The group consists of 21 members, most of them are women.

The first time I heard about this group was few months ago when one of their members, Sulaiman al-Salman, appeared on Haifaa al-Mansour’s talk show on LBC to discuss women’s driving. Al-Salman said the aim of the group is to demand women’s rights such as driving cars and the right to uncover their faces and have more flexible work options. I have tried to acquire more information about them, but so far such information remain scarce.

I don’t think they will get the permission they are seeking. It’s a really long shot. The law that is supposed to regulate civil society organizations is still under discussion in Shoura Council and awaits to be voted after the Shoura members return from their summer vacation. As far as I know, the only type of permission MOSA give to establish an NGO in the present time is restricted to charities and philanthropic bodies.

The article quotes some other members of the group whom I’ve never heard of before, but I think these people are/should be fully aware of what I said here. It is unclear to me why they apply in the first place if they know their application would be rejected, at least until the new law is implemented. Such application seems like a move to create buzz around the group more than a serious attempt to establish something sustainable.

nujaimiHowever, it takes only a little spark like this to provoke the likes of Sahwa unofficial spokesman Mohammed al-Nujaimi, who would never miss a chance to be in the media, to release his loose cannons. Nujaimi has been leading a fierce crusade against all things liberal in Saudi Arabia, and this was a good opportunity for him to continue his efforts.

“I’m not against that liberals would start an organization to support women,” he said. “I’m against some of their ideas, especially that all people in this group are liberals.” This doesn’t make sense, but that’s OK because being the demagogue that he is, he’s never been known to make much sense. “We support women from an Islamic perspective,” he added.

Moreover, Nujaimi seems pretty sure that his views regarding women’s issues would prevail in the end. He said that a controversial issue like face covering can only be decided through some kind of a ‘domestic’ fatwa, and since the religious establishment here say a women must cover her face then there should be no argument about that (!). “In any case, women will cover their faces in government offices,” he concluded.

Sometimes I wonder if Nujaimi actually listens to himself when he comes up with stuff like these. He sounds as if he is trying to make things seem logical, but the problem is that his logic is so twisted. Since when one has to adhere to the instructions of some official authority to make up his beliefs and becomes a devoted Muslim? All I know is that the Islam Mohammed al-Nujaimi and his likes talk about is not the Islam I know.

I started talking about women’s rights and ended up talking about Islam. How did that happen? That’s normal: the conservatives here like to squeeze religion into everything, whether they were trying to object to some inevitable change or simply to make a point, but truth is, they have not been making many good of these lately.

Saudis Distressed over U.S. Visas

For Saudis, many things have changed after 9/11. One of these things is that getting a visa to enter the United States has become very, very difficult. The reevaluation of the process to grant visas to Saudis have made it complex and time-consuming. I don’t blame American for trying to protect their country, and to be fair, getting a visa to enter Saudi Arabia is not that easy either.

However, what many Saudis complain about is not the long process and the time it takes, although time can be a very important factor especially in medical cases, but rather the way they are treated when they apply for a visa to enter the U.S.

Mohammed al-Tounsi, managing director of al-Ekhbariya news channel, recently published an open letter to the U.S. ambassador in Riyadh in al-Watan daily where he wrote about the “humiliation” he has had to go though when he applied for a visa to take his wife Rima al-Shamekh for treatment in America. Al-Shamekh who used to host a popular talk show on al-Ekhbariya has suffered a stroke on air when she was interviewing the former British ambassador last year. Al-Tounsi says that apparently every Saudi is “a ‘suspect’ until Homeland Security in Washington prove otherwise.”

In the same newspaper, columnist Ali al-Mousa followed the next day with another letter to the ambassador, saying there are 200 instructors in the university where he works who dose not want to visit the U.S. embassy because they prefer to avoid “humiliation, procrastination and insults.” He says with that this kind of treatment, the millions of dollars America spend on PR are rather pointless. “We will not shave our beards to prove that we are not on terrorists’ lists, and we will not change our culture because we believe we are a peaceful nation with a noble message that won’t be distorted by a few out of millions,” he added.

Needless to say, some extremists could not miss the chance to take cheap shot at al-Tounsi and al-Mousa. Using their mouthpiece, al-Sahat Forums, where they usually accuse Saudi liberal figures of being blindly loyal to the U.S., they seem to be rather happy that “Americans have rejected and humiliated their own loyal agents.” Some of them have even gone as far as describing what is happening here as a conspiracy by Saudi liberals to distance themselves from Mama America.

I have my own experience with the U.S. embassy in Riyadh that I will write about in detail later, but for now I’m wondering how/if the ambassador is going to respond to these letters, and if the U.S. government are considering any change in the process of granting entry visas for Saudi citizens. It has been six years since 9/11 so maybe it’s about time to review the process and consider the possibility of making it less complicated and more streamlined.

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