Saudi Hypocrisy and Empowered Women

Amal Zahid is a renowned Saudi columnist and writer. I used to read her articles as a kid in Sayidaty * (my mother used to be an avid reader of that magazine during the 90’s). Currently she heads the women’s committee of Madinah Literature Club and writes regularly for Al-Watan daily, which boasts a refreshing roster of liberal leaning writers.

Two of her recent articles especially worth mentioning because they touch on some usual issues from unusual angles, namely: the Commission and women’s driving.

So while the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice can be easily criticized for many of the lunacies they commit, Amal Zahid chooses to take a bird’s eye view by asking: what’s the point of virtue if it is forcibly imposed on people? As she correctly notes, this only reinforces the hypocrisy that has become so common and even acceptable in this country. It seems that it is no longer weird or frowned upon to see many Saudis who lead a double life: religious, conservative and conformist on the outside; another one that is wild and extreme when they are away from the watchful eye of society.

The second article did not even make it to the newspaper. As I previously said here, women’s driving and mahram are off-limits to the local media now. But as you probably already know, censorship is no longer effective. Only a few hours after she was told about the ban, the article was promptly published online on several websites. Oh, the beauty of the web!

Amal Zahid believes, like I do, that it would only take a decision by the King to put this whole issue behind us. “It is only then that they will shut up and submit,” she said about the opponents. Zahid also wonders how this issue will be viewed by the many young women, including her own daughter, who currently study abroad as part of the large scholarships program launched by the government few years ago.

I think it will be interesting to see what would happen with tens of thousands of Saudi students once they come back home after years of living abroad. A friend of mine told me not to hold my breath because when those sent in the 70’s on scholarships came back they did not do much to reform their country. Nothing happened. What would you think this time will be any different, my friend asked.

The answer is women. The current foreign scholarships program include a big number of girls, and I believe they will be the engine of change. It is hard to imagine that these young women will settle for the restrictions unfairly imposed on them here after the kind of freedom and independence they enjoyed abroad.

Unlike Saudi men who are not bothered by the hypocrisy of leading two different lifestyles between abroad and at home, Saudi women will be determined more than ever to gain their rights and make the changes needed to reform this nation. Women activists have always complained that their calls don’t echo among regular women here because they are so domesticated and blinded into believing that their life is perfect and perfectly normal. Things will be different when the scholarships girls return home.

Also by Amal Zahid:

Forbidden Inside, Permitted Outside

* Correction: Amal told me that it was her cousin, Ommaima, who used to write for Sayidaty. Before writing for al-Watan, Amal wrote in al-Jazirah and Asharq al-Awsat.

Commission Ban Cats and Dogs

I have been trying to avoid writing about the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice lately because, frankly, why beat a dead horse? But this one is just too good to miss:

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have announced a ban on selling cats and dogs as pets, or walking them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men using them as a means of making passes at women, an official said on Wednesday.

Now I’m not particularly a fan of cats and dogs. My friends who are pet owners know this, and they usually keep their pets away when I visit them. It’s not like I have anything against these animals but I just have this fear of getting too close to them. Still, this decision is just idiotic.

But before we get more into this, let’s go back a little bit. This whole ban thing has actually started in Jeddah two years ago. At the time, Jeddah’s Commission said that young Saudis who go out in streets with their pet dogs are violating of the Kingdom’s culture and traditions, and allegedly causing distress especially to families with young children. Interestingly, and luckily for my friend Rasheed who has since moved to Abu Dhabi, the ban has never implemented. “All pet stores are still selling cats and dogs,” one pet owner told Arab News.

However, although Riyadh and Jeddah are two big cities in the same country, they can be quite different on matters like these. The Commission is much, much more powerful in Riyadh than in Jeddah and therefore I expect this ban to be fully implemented in the capital.

Of course it is needless to say how ridiculous this whole thing is. The reason the Commission presented for the ban is kind of a joke, really: “because of men using them as a means of making passes at women,” they said. So you go and ban dogs and cats? How about punishing those so-called men? I guess you are too busy invading people’s privacy and controlling their lives to bother with few men who use their pets to annoy others.

Related:

My friend Grace notes the different takes between Saudi and American media.

Rights Bodies Appeal for Two Saudis

Human Rights Watch has urged courts in Jeddah to dismiss a case against Rai’f Badawi, founder of Saudi Liberals forums. On May 5, the prosecutor charged Badawi with “setting up an electronic site that insults Islam,” and referred the case to court, asking for a five-year prison sentence and a 3 million riyal fine.

Badawi no longer owns or controls the website. After unknown hackers, who probably think they were doing some sort of electronic jihad, attacked the website several times and threatened him and his family, he sold the website and fled the country two weeks ago. A new owner announced a while ago that he took over the website, which has been offline for more than a week now.

It is understood that Badawi will be tried according to the E-Crimes Act that has been issued in March 2007. The act, which can be found here (Arabic PDF), contains some laws that seem to target free speech such as Article 6 which incriminates “producing content which violates general order, religious values, public morals or sanctity of private life, or preparing it, or sending it, or storing it via the network or a computer.”

The questions is: who defines and specifies what are those religious values and what are those public morals? I don’t know if this act has been approved by the Shoura Council or not, because I think it is unacceptable for the Council to approve such act that contains these vague laws and articles which contradicts international conventions and accords on which Saudi Arabia is a signatory.

amnesty_logo On a related note, Amnesty International are appealing for Muhammad Ali Abu Raziza, a psychology professor at the University of Um al-Qura, who has been sentenced to 150 lashes and eight months’ imprisonment for meeting a woman in a coffee shop. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this case and the reports on it in the local press has been full of contradictions. Therefor, I can’t make up my mind on who is at fault here.

However, I think the Commission should seriously reconsider how to define and deal with this whole “khulwa” thing. When a man and a woman meet in a public place like a cafe, a restaurant, or in the street where they are surrounded by people and others can see them, does it constitute a khulwa? I doubt that they will ever think this through but I guess it’s worth asking anyway.

Sanctity of Human Life

A boy and a girl have died in a horrific car accident after being chased by a patrol that belongs to the Commission for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the northern city of Tabuk. In the details, the Toyota Camry of the boy was completely crushed under a large truck on Medina-Tabuk Rd during his attempt to escape from the Commission’s patrol.

This tragic incident is the latest in a series of highly publicized cases involving the Commission during the past two years that resulted in the death of citizens, such as the case of Salman Al Huraisi who died during a raid on his house in Riyadh last year as well as the case of Saud Al Balawi who died in the Commission center in Tabuk after he was arrested for giving a ride to an unrelated old woman.

I don’t want to talk about the apparent recklessness and brutality in these cases. I don’t want to talk about the number of violations on local laws and basic human rights committed in these cases. Because I will be stating the obvious. Instead, I just want to say a few words about another aspect here, which is the absence of any sign of respect to humanity.

I think that one the most important things these stories show is the blatant disregard for human life and dignity. Even if the Commission members were acting within their legal rights, the outcomes of their actions have been disastrous. Yet, none of these incidents has seen the Commission admit that any mistakes have been made or apologize to the families of those who died, directly or indirectly, on the hands of the Commission members.

This holier than though attitude is disgusting and is incompatible with the message the Commission try to promote of guarding Islamic values and protecting morality in public. How can they make such claim when they show absolute disrespect to the sanctity of human life?

We Shall Overcome

in short…

USA … 1931

Saudi Arabia… 2007

Translation: “According to The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice; passing coffee to women is not allowed.

When I saw this post over at Lalla Mona’s blog, I remembered Martin Luther King’s words. To her and everyone out there who aspires to reform this country, I want to say: don’t worry, you are not alone, and we shall overcome.

Read More:

As Told By ubergirl87: One Day…

The Kingdom of (in)humanity

As if Yakin Ertürk, the special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Violence Against Women, needed more issues to talk about during her 10-day visit to the Kingdom, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice have decided to give her one more reason to tell us how we should treat our women (and men for that matter), and gosh how they hate it when they do that.

This sorry incident involving a Saudi-American businesswoman arrested in Riyadh for sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop with an unrelated man occurred on the same day Ertürk arrived to meet government officials, members of the Shoura Council and academics as well as individual victims of violence against women. She will subsequently report her findings to the UN Human Rights Council.

I’m glad that the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) have decided to speak out and stand up for the woman. They described the manner in which she was strip-searched in prison as “inhuman,” but to me the whole ordeal from the moment she was arrested is inhuman.

After recounting the outrageous violations committed by the Commission member against the women, an NSHR official said they will raise the issue with the Governorate of Riyadh. Moreover, the official said that they will ask the governorate that the woman be compensated for the damages she sustained.

However, based on past experiences with incidents involving the Commission, I think it is very unlikely that the governorate will hold them accountable for their misbehavior. Actually, one of the main problems with the Commission is the magnitude of power given to them in Riyadh that allow them to violate basic human rights and invade people’s privacy. Compare the situation in the capital to that in Jeddah and you will see what I mean. I think we are going to hear the same old rhetoric about how the Commission is not responsible for the mistakes its members make even if it resulted in the death of citizens.

I have said it many times before and I will say it again: until the government is serious about setting clear guidelines on what this Commission can and can’t do, we will continue to hear about atrocities like this one. In the past, many things like these used to pass unnoticed because people were too afraid to speak out against them, but times have changed and it is up to the people now to stand up for their rights.