Category News

Justice and Common Sense

As the new reforms on the legal system are yet to be implemented, I guess that some judges thought they would use whatever left of time for the current system to demonstrate their misjudgment and lack of intelligence. It was not enough for them to sentence the Qatif girl to 90 lashes a year ago, so they decided to more than double the number of lashes plus six months of jail. The girl is a rape victim, but apparently being raped is not enough to spare her the punishment for something called ‘khulwa’.

Now what kind of ‘khulwa’ that would take place in front of a crowded shopping mall is beyond my comprehension, but that’s just me. I’m pretty sure our esteemed judges and those who support this bizarre ruling have many justifications to present upon request, but then again, who on earth am I to question a court which uses the word ‘sharia’ to legitimize their decisions no matter how absurd these decisions are?

Some people have asked me why I have not written about this earlier, and the reason is because I was angry, disgusted and depressed. Those following me on Twitter have probably seen this, and although I have been discussing the issues with my family and friends who share the same feelings with me, I could not bring myself to write about it without using some kind of language that I’d rather not to use on the blog.

The victim’s lawyer Abdul Rahman Al Lahem has been suspended from the case and faces a disciplinary session because the judge thinks that Al Lahem was using the media to affect the court’s ruling. Now how can the media be used to affect the ruling is anyone’s guess, but why should the judge be affected by the media might be something we should be looking at, because as far as I have been told, our right honorable judges are very wise men who claim to base their verdicts on Qura and Sunna, not some blabbering in the media. Anyway, it is not the first time that Al Lahem faces a problem like this. He has been jailed before for defending reformists but he continued his work as Saudi Arabia’s most important human rights lawyer.

It is up to the appeal court now to confront this unjust ruling and finish the suffering of the girl and her husband who bravely stood up beside his wife. Otherwise, this case might require the interference of the king in order for justice and common sense to prevail. Let’s hope they will prevail in the end.

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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.

Doing Business in Saudi Arabia is Easier

The World Bank has recognized Saudi Arabia as one of the top reformers in its most recent ‘Ease of Doing Business‘ report, ranking it at 23rd position jumping from its 38th last year, and making it the best place to do business in the entire Middle East. “Saudi Arabia eliminated layers of bureaucracy that had previously made it one of toughest places in the world to start a business,” the report said.

Great work by Amr Al Dabbagh and the people at SAGIA. I have to admit that I was very skeptic when I first heard him talking about making the Kingdom one of the top 10 most competitive countries in the world by 2010, but now it is obvious we are on the right track here.

Congratulations to all the people who worked on this. Keep up the good work!

Succession and Women’s Driving

I don’t know why, but apparently we get a lot of our important decisions made during the last ten days of Ramadhan. Last year it was the new succession law, and this year we got the judiciary reform as well as the fine details of the aforementioned succession law. I guess our government is always inspired by the spirituality of those holy days.

Speaking of the government, I wonder how/if they are going to react to what Fawzia Al-Oyouni, a founding member of the Society for Protecting and Defending Women’s Rights, told Arab New today. She said they are planning to take field trips in markets, shopping malls and hospitals in order to educate as many women as possible and to spread awareness on women’s driving.

Working on the ground, like dating, is a risky business in Saudi Arabia. The public spaces Al-Oyouni talks about, such as markets and malls, are to a degree or another controlled by the infamous religious police. I can’t imagine they would allow anyone else to use these spaces for a cause that they have no sympathy with.

The King has always pledged his commitment to reform. He wants to make sure that his efforts in changing this country would last and the gains won’t be lost soon, and that the changes he is implementing for the good of the nation are solid and permanent. This is an issue where that commitment can be shown again.

Reforms on the Justice System

My recent visit to the United States has consolidated my views on the importance of an independent, transparent and powerful judiciary system for any modern country. That’s why I was very pleased to see that our outcry for a much-needed reform in the justice system in Saudi Arabia has finally reached the King who issued a royal decree to overhaul the whole thing. It is long overdue, probably, but it is here nevertheless, and thank God for that.

The new system is expected to take many of the powers currently possessed by the Higher Judicial Council. Now this is not going to be an easy transition, I think. Sheikh Al Luhaidan and his fellow clerics have been on the top of our judicial system for a long time, and the notion that they will give up their powers peacefully seems unlikely. But let’s hope we won’t see any of the old faces in the new supreme court.

Off to America

When you read this post, I will most probably be at Bahrain International Airport waiting for my flight to Washington D.C. through Frankfurt. It is the first time for me to visit the United States as well as being my first trip to a non-Arab country. The two-week trip is a part of a long-running exchange program called the International Visitor Leadership Program. It is sponsored by the State Department and a number of prestigious NGO’s, and it has been running since the early 1970’s.

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Last year, there was this American professor who was visiting Saudi Arabia to learn more about the country and its people. The professor has been reading my blog for a while and he wanted to meet me to talk about blogging and youth culture in the Kingdom. We met in a hotel lobby in Riyadh and talked for a few hours. Present at that meeting was an official from the US Embassy who was coordinating the professor’s trip.

In the middle of an answer to a question I mentioned that I’ve never been to the States or Europe. The American official was a bit surprised that my English was very good despite the fact that I’ve never been to the US or the UK. Later, she said they have this exchange program at the embassy and asked me if I would be interested in such thing. I said “yes,” although I thought she was just being nice, and shortly I forgot about the whole thing.

Few months later she contacted me saying that I was nominated for the program and they will need some information about me. Even at that point, I did not take this thing seriously. I was saying: there will be a lot of people nominated who are much better than me and they will certainly be chosen over me.

It wasn’t until the beginning of this summer when the embassy contacted me saying I was selected for the program so they should start arranging for my participation in the program. They have taken care of almost everything: I just had to sign the papers and show up for the visa interview.

However, visiting the US Embassy in Riyadh for the interview was not a very pleasant experience. One day in August, at 6:40 AM, I was standing in a quickly growing line outside the embassy building. Around 7:20, they started allowing people to enter.

I was somehow lucky because when I showed the security officer my papers he took me ahead of others. I went through the highly-guarded gates, took a number and waited for my turn. The process was relatively slow and the atmosphere inside the embassy was cold and dry.

Before going in, I thought the interview would go something like this: you come into a room and sit on a chair facing two or three people who would ask you some questions, chat with you a little bit and then you leave. Needless to say, that was not the case.

After waiting for about two-and-a-half hours, it was finally my turn for the interview. I went to the the interview window (yes, not a room, just a glass window) not knowing what to expect, and there was this blond lady who asked first me to put my fingers on a device to take my fingerprints.

She started questioning me in a rather accusing tone about my intention of the visit and who nominated me for the program. She asked me why I was nominated for which I did not have a good answer and it was a question she better ask to those who nominated me.

The way of questioning made me nervous and it felt to me more of an interrogation than an interview. After a long pause and some staring at me, she said my papers were incomplete and there was a missing form that I had to provide. I told her it was her colleagues at the embassy who prepared all the paperwork for me and all I had to do was to sign them. She said my application could not be processed until I provide the missing form. She gave me my passport and said someone from there would contact me later.

Few days later someone from the embassy called and said the missing form was still in Washington; as soon as it arrived they sent it to me. I signed the form and fedex’d it with my passport. After two weeks I had my passport back with a short visit visa.

Now that I got the visa, I have to admit that I expected the process to be smoother than how it was. I mean: the program is sponsored by the State Department and they were responsible for arranging the whole thing. In general, the experience was relatively good, but that’s maybe because I was expecting it to be worse, except for the interview part which really sucked.

I am looking forward to this program, and I want to make the most out of this trip. I will be joined by three other Saudis, two ladies and one gentelman, who were also selected for the program, but I have yet to meet them. I will be first at Washington DC and will spend some time at NYC later in the month, so if you would like to meet up just drop me a line and we’ll see if we can pull something off. Hope that I will be able to update the blog with more words and pictures while I’m there so stay tuned.

Al Hameds on Trial

My brothers and I went this morning to the court here in Ahssa to finish some regular paper work. It was past 9 AM when we arrived to the court building. We entered the main hall to find a lot of people waiting while the court employees were chitchatting in different corners of their offices. None of the judges has arrived yet, we were told. The employees were sitting doing nothing because they could not turn on their computers. They told us if they turned on their computers the electricity in the building would blackout. (!) We were told to get back on Saturday, not even Wednesday! Some people blamed Amr Al Faisal when he ripped into the Jeddah court. Take that!

So, in what is expected to be yet another mockery in the Saudi legal system, Abdullah Al Hamed and his brother Isa were told to appear in a criminal court in Buraida next Saturday over their involvement in the women’s demonstration that was held in July. “The charge is that they incited the women to stage a sit-in, and tried to break through a security cordon,” Khalid Al Omair, a fellow activist, told AFP. These charges sound dubious, but with a legal system like ours anything can happen.

The only good thing about this rather disturbing piece of news is that the trial would be open to public. It will be a chance for those supporting the reforms to make a statement by showing up at the court on Saturday morning, and hopefully a big crowd would draw the attention of public and media.

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