Category News

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.

Kuwaiti Bloggers Abducted

Some very sad and disturbing news coming from Kuwait:

At Saturday 8pm Kuwait State Police abducted 2 Kuwaiti bloggers Bashar Al-Sayegh from Al-Ohmmah.org and Jassem Al-Qamis without the due protection of the Kuwait Constitution while leaving work. The reason being that an anonymous commenter wrote something criticizing the Emir yet even though it was removed immediately by Al-Sayegh they are still holding him responsible.

You can keep up with the latest updates from the Kuwaiti blogosphere through Safat.

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.

KAIG: More Megaprojects for Riyadh

The concrete and cement jungle that is Riyadh is finally going to get some green:

Saudi ‘Eden’ built in the desert
The largest series of botanical landscapes in the world is being built in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The gardens – covering 160 hectares (395 acres) – aims to re-create the 400 million-year-old history of the Earth’s plants, trees and flowers. The £100m ($200m) project is due to be completed in 2010. The complex of gardens – to be called the King Abdullah International Gardens – is a gift from the city of Riyadh to the Saudi monarch. The landscapes will be five times larger than the similar Eden Project in south-west England.

kaig_sky_view

For more information about the project you can visit KAIG official website. They even plan to start a weblog next month!

NSHR Asks CITC to Unblock Website

Saudi Arabia’s Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC), which recently took over the responsibility of internet filtering from the much-loathed ISU of KACST, blocked a website called Menber al-Hewar wa al-Ebda’a (the name can be translated to Forum of Dialogue and Creativity).

The man behind this website is Saudi poet Ali al-Dumaini, one of three so-called “Constitutional Reformists” who were jailed and later pardoned by King Abdullah soon after he ascended the throne. Following the blockage, al-Dumaini issued a statement expressing his disappointment at the approach the government have taken when dealing with forums of peaceful expression.

In a country like this, blocking a website is hardly big news, so what makes this particular case different? The answer is because it is the first time that the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) get involved demanding unblocking the website. According to al-Riyadh daily, NSHR have contacted CITC and asked them to unblock the website. NSHR said this blockage violates the press law as well as Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It is very interesting to see NSHR weigh in and make such a bold statement like this one. They have impressed many observers earlier this year when they published their first report on the state of human rights in the Kingdom, but I honestly did not expect them to move far beyond that.

However, their involvement in this case raises some interesting questions. Are they going to ask CITC to unblock other websites such as Elaph, al-Sahat and Rasid, to mention a few examples? Moreover, are they going to move to left the ban on some writers such as Khalid al-Dakhil and Iman al-Qahtani? I really doubt it, but I have to admit that what they did here is a step in the right direction.

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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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Obstacles Remain for Women Employment

The Government often talk about providing more work opportunities for women. However, talking about that is one thing and actually working to make it happen is quite another. Take for example this piece from Arab News today:

Working mothers who spend eight hours or more at work want daycare services at work due to the distress caused by being away from their babies and toddlers.

Now you would think this brilliant idea has occurred to these women just now, but a moment later you will learn that it’s been more than two years since the Ministry of Labor (MOL) issued a law stating that businesses with 50 or more women and at least 10 working mothers must pay for daycare services to children under six years of age. As for businesses with over 100 women, a staffed daycare facility must be provided on the premises.

The mentioned above law sounds good, except for one thing: it has not been implemented. Is it possible that because MOL could not implement its controversial law to employ women in lingerie shops that they are having a difficult time now convincing anyone to take them and their laws seriously? Maybe, but it is certainly not an acceptable excuse.

If MOL cannot even force their fellow government departments to implement the law, and considering the fact that most businesses here have no idea whatsoever about something called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), I really doubt that we will see a practical solution for this problem any time soon.

P.S. As far as I know, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Social Affairs are two different things. Why Arab News decided to join them together to create a ministry that doesn’t exist is beyond my comprehension.