Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter

Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:28:00 GMT

<div class=WordSection1> <h2 align=center style='text-align:center'>Center for Democracy and Human Rights in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1:place><o:p></o:p></h2> <h4 align=center style='text-align:center'>April 6, 2012</h4> <h4 align=center style='text-align:center'>Commentaries and Analysis of the Saudi Current Scene </h4> <h2 align=center style='text-align:center'>Public Demands Versus Regime’s Resistance<o:p></o:p></h2>  <o:p></o:p> Defamation of Whose Religion?<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: While King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is being lavishly praised for organizing international interfaith dialogues, he, his controlled media, the Saudi- based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the highest Saudi religious authority continue to show utter intolerance of other faiths, especially Christianity. In a recent offensive response to a question by a Kuwaiti parliamentarian regarding building churches in the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, was reported to have said that it was not only forbidden to build churches in the Arabian Peninsula, but  the ones in existence <a href="http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=51374">must be destroyed</a>.  <o:p> </o:p> While it is reported that the Saudi Mufti said there too many churches in the region, in fact, none exist in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> which occupies 70% of the <st1:place w:st="on">Arabian Peninsula</st1:place>.  It’s estimated that there are about 3.5 million Christians, mostly Catholics from the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Philippines</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>, among other nationalities working in the Gulf Arab countries. The Mufti ought to know that there are fewer churches in all of the Arab World than there are mosques in <st1:State w:st="on">Michigan</st1:State>, <st1:State w:st="on">New York</st1:State> and <st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:State>, let alone <st1:City w:st="on">London</st1:City>, <st1:City w:st="on">Paris</st1:City> and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Amsterdam</st1:City></st1:place>, where Muslims practice their religious rituals openly and freely. They are also protected by the same laws that protect the overwhelming non-Muslim majority in those places.   The Saudi Mufti’s entrenched animosity toward Christianity and other faiths is not surprising. Based on his religious teachings, he believes Islam is supreme and other beliefs are blasphemous. Tragically, he reflects the overall sentiment in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place>, especially among senior government’s official like Crown Prince Naif and Defense Minister Prince Salman. This is evidenced by the Saudi policy of the death sentence meted out to any citizen who chooses to convert to other religions. <o:p> </o:p> What’s most disconcerting about the Mufti’s pejorative remark is King Abdullah’s total silence. As the ultimate authority in the country and the self-appointed reconciler among different beliefs, the King could have at least distanced himself from the inflammatory and violence-instigating comment by his country’s top religious representative. The reason the Saudi King did not do or say anything about the senior Saudi cleric’s dangerous remark is because he, like his religious establishment, feels Islam is <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499">superior and the only hope for humanity</a>. <o:p> </o:p> 21st Century Versus the Age of Darkness    CDHR’s Commentary: <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/16/west-must-relearn-lesson-of-durand-line">This interpretive article</a> shows what exists and has been in existence for centuries. Can the undeniable civilizational and cultural divides between authoritarianism in the East and individual liberty in the West be narrowed to the point where most Arabs change their perceptions of themselves, embrace freedom of choice and question the ultimate man's and religions' peculiar dictates (habits)? I say yes. The process, albeit embryonic, has begun in the East. The West can supplement the unprecedented process by letting go of its unchanged images of Arabs, letting go of tyrannical Arab dynasties and allying itself with the new generation of aspiring Arab and Muslim women and men who crave freedom and die to liberate themselves from cultural and religious totalitarianism. The Arab people’s Revolt of 2011 is a manifest example of what marginalized people are willing to do to change things for the better for themselves and by extension for the international community, especially democratic societies. Letting the Arab people's Revolt of 2011 expire in vain, derailed by political landlords or taken over by religious extremists would be a tragedy of disproportionate consequences. <o:p> </o:p> 15 Centuries Overdue, but Better Late Than Never <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: After centuries of vilification of women as inferior and unworthy of respect, the desert men of Saudi Arabia are slowly inching toward recognizing that <a href="http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article598292.ece" target="_blank">men’s fear of women</a> (gynophobia) is an incapacitating ailment that has deprived Saudi Arabia of half of its citizens’ best brains and desperately needed contributions. The male Saudi’s fear of losing control over female women’s sexuality plays a detrimental role in male perceptions of and attitudes toward women. This tragic yet widespread national mindset explains why male relatives slash women’s throats if they indulge in sexual activities outside of marriage. Men are not subjected to this malevolence.  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> In some cases, women are <a href="http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=124361&d=8&m=7&y=2009&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom" target="_blank">gunned down</a> if a male relative is informed that they have been seen talking to non-related males. They can be <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm" target="_blank">prevented from fleeing for their lives from burning schools</a> if they are not covered in disfiguring black from head to toe. For the Saudi government’s paid religious police, the lives of schoolgirls are not worth saving if they might also expose their faces to strangers. <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> While this cruel punishment is practiced by individuals in other Arab and Muslim countries and is justified as defense of family honor (honor killing), autocratic and theocratic Saudi institutions encourage sadism against women from cradle to grave. <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> The institutionalized male guardian system (total male control over every aspect of female lives and livelihood), concealing women in black from head to toe, financial dependence on males, poor education, and denying women the right to drive, travel, or practice law in Saudi courts are some of the state's severe discriminatory policies and practices against women. These denigrating policies and practices translate into sanctioned male possession of women. <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> However, things are changing. Many women are taking charge of their lives and livelihoods. This transition from male domination to gradual but irreversible women’s liberation is due to the increasing number of educated women and the last ten years’ unprecedented exposure of the true nature of the Saudi ruling elites and their domestic policies against women. The global media’s extraordinary focus on the Saudi government and its institution can largely be attributed to the terrorist attack on the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> by mostly Saudi nationals on September 11, 2001 (9/11). This has shown the Saudi people a side of their government, religion, and traditions they have never before had an opportunity to explore, debate, or even question. Moreover, the arrival of social media and the Saudi women’s optimization of this new, safe communication tool has changed their perceptions of themselves, their country, and male domination.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> The flow of information (via social media) in gargantuan volumes among Saudi women (and men) has amplified their awareness of the false use of religion and tradition by the Saudi authorities to marginalize them and exonerate the system from meeting its obligations to all citizens’ needs. Furthermore, global human rights groups have intensified their efforts to expose oppression of Saudi women.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> Saudi fathers, brothers, and husbands have come under unremitting pressure from their educated female friends and relatives to support their legitimate rights and demands for equality. No one has been excluded from these demands, including the king.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> “Slavery is an immoral act”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: Many major and smaller human rights groups, including this organization, as well as some Saudi citizens and even a few unofficial royals have deplored the maltreatment of the millions of mostly expatriate Asian workers in Saudi Arabia, especially maids. <a href="http://saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20120321120103">The conditions</a> under which most Asian laborers work and live have been described as “modern slavery” and that is not an exaggeration.  <o:p> </o:p> The misfortune of expatriate Asian workers in Saudi Arabia commences in the lands from which they hail. They are recruited by agencies that charge them exorbitant fees and place them in the hands of Saudi laborers’ agencies who assigned them to Saudi employers, known as sponsors. Upon their arrival in Saudi Arabia, their passports are confiscated and handed to their future employers. They literally become hostages. They cannot seek other employment, communicate with their families when they need to or form social groups to support each other and evoke the social, political and religious freedom they enjoyed in their homelands. <o:p> </o:p> In addition, the Asian laborers receive no help from their homelands’ representatives in Saudi Arabia. This is mostly due to their governments’ fear of Saudi economic and religious reprisals. Many Asian states benefit from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab oil rich states’ aid and businesses, including the billions of dollars sent back home by abused laborers. <o:p> </o:p> The abuses and exploitation of poverty stricken Asian laborers in Saudi Arabia bear testimony to what many Saudi citizens, activists, reporters and non-Saudi groups have been saying about the rampant injustices and corruption committed against defenseless workers by the Saudi system, businesspeople and thousands of households. <o:p> </o:p> Saudi Arabia is a member of the World Trade Organization, WTO, and must be held accountable to the WTO’s charter and other Immigrant Workers’ International Declarations. The Saudi people will be served well by holding their autocratic and theocratic institutions accountable and by treating their guest workers with dignity and paying them their meager hard-earned wages. The UN Human Rights and Migrant Labor agencies as well as the International Labor Unions should not be selective and must speak up against the Saudis’ maltreatment of the estimated 10 million expatriate laborers in Saudi Arabia. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Royals’ “Gifts” to Their Subjects <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> CDHR’s Comment: When people in Norway, England, Sweden or Spain read an article <a href="http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article588570.ece">like this</a>: Jazan housing project: A gift from King Abdullah for the displaced many think the Saudi King is paying for projects from his legislatively allotted income. What people in democratic societies where monarchs are only figure heads may not know is that the King of Saudi Arabia and his large family (between 10 and 40 thousand) control the national income, the state’s treasury and the banking system. In fact, the Saudi royals treat the country as if it were their private property. <o:p></o:p> Until recently, the majority of the Saudi population (especially those 50 years old and above) has been made to believe that their country belongs to the Saudi ruling family after whom the country is named. Historically and culturally, countries in the Arab World that were established by nomadic dynasties (with the help of colonial powers) or taken over by military elites are treated as their private dominion by those who rule. This is evidenced by Arab dictators’ responses to their marginalized populations who are revolting to reclaim ownership of their countries, wealth and dignity.  <o:p></o:p> Assuming the Saudi people cannot see, hear or understand, many non-Saudis and Saudis who benefit from the scheming system praise the king and his family for handouts (bribery), building projects and for providing “free” education and other public services. This is a dangerous hypothesis because most Saudis are cognizant of how their country’s wealth is being syphoned off and the regime is taking notice. <o:p></o:p> The overwhelming majority of the population, especially the younger generation, is not buying into the old handout system or “take what I give you and be grateful.” This is evidenced by the fact that the second (the first being women’s demands for equality) most frequently discussed issue in the social media and even the government’s controlled news outlets in the country is corruption, embezzlement of public wealth and lack of accountability in the public and private sectors. <o:p></o:p> The Saudi royals, men and women in and out of government, and their business partners ought to reconsider their erroneous assumptions that the people can be bribed and silenced forever. The Saudi people, like their counterparts in the Arab World and elsewhere, have changed irreversibly. They understand that their wealth is being stolen by a few self-appointed people who are vulnerable now more than ever. <o:p></o:p> Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel’s Heartwarming Speech<o:p></o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: During her “Woman Personality of the Year 2012” <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20120311119411">award acceptance speech</a>, the wife of one of the richest men in the world, Prince Al-Waleed Ibn Talal, Princess (by marriage) Ameerah Al-Taweel gave a moving speech where she correctly praised the hardworking Saudi women who fight for their basic citizenship rights and the mothers who struggle to feed their hungry children: “…those women who strive to earn their rights, to the hardworking teacher who travels far distances each morning, giving all that she has to educate students so her own children are fed at night, to the divorced woman fighting in court to secure a safe home for her children, to those women who crossed all the barriers and are saving people’s lives through their medical research. To all of the women achievers who were not given the attention or appreciation, each and every one of you deserves to be the woman of the year…” <o:p> </o:p> We salute Princess Ameerah for her recognition of and support for all suffering and marginalized Saudi women. Her speech described some of the unbearable and avoidable obstacles Saudi women face every day from cradle to grave. Yet they never let their government’s institutionalized discriminatory policies, crippling religious fatawi and men’s traditional chauvinism stop them from fighting for their natural, divine and human rights. And they are winning.  <o:p> </o:p> Encouraging speeches are good for moral support, but without deeds, they are nothing but empty words that help their composers and deliverers more than those the speakers praise. The Princess and her liberal wealthy husband, Prince Al-Waleed, can easily afford to spend $5 billion to establish Co-Op jobs for 30 thousand Saudi women in the neglected Southern region. Modern and non-religious day care centers can be built for the children of working mothers. The centers can be maintained by mothers who can bring their children to play at and benefit from what modern centers can offer to the development of children. Princess Ameerah and other princesses can prove to their oppressed subjects that they do care for the disenfranchised, instead of praising their ruling family in Western media. Actions speak louder than words, even those as powerful as Princess Ameerah’s speech on March 8, 2012 in Dubai.     <a name="_GoBack"></a>    <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p>     </div> You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/"> http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. 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Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:46:00 GMT

<div class=WordSection1> <h2 align=center style='text-align:center'>Center for Democracy and Human Rights in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Washington</st1:City> <st1:State w:st="on">DC</st1:State></st1:place><o:p></o:p></h2> <h4 align=center style='text-align:center'>March 12, 2012 </h4> <h4 align=center style='text-align:center'>Saudi Current News & Developments CDHR's Commentary and Analysis <o:p></o:p></h4>  Saudi Women Have Had It <o:p></o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: Saudi women are gradually and irreversibly taking charge of their lives and livelihood. Having been denied their citizenship rights as equal members of Saudi society since long before the establishment of the Saudi state in 1932, Saudi women are saying "no" to institutionalized and severely enforced marginalization, oppression and neglect. They are the most vocal advocates for justice, equality, tolerance and inclusion. From demanding release of their loved ones from Saudi dungeons, to campaigning to hire women to sell lingerie in department stores, to removing of business wakil, to voting in cosmetic municipal elections and to the beating and (in some cases killing) of abusive husbands, Saudi women are revolting against an autocratic and theocratic chauvinist system and male domination. One of the most brilliant and courageous actions taken by a large number of women to make their legitimate grievances <a href="http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Local/News_Detail.aspx?ArticleID=90151&CategoryID=5">heard took place on March 7, 2012</a>, in Abha, the capital of the picturesque Asir region. In what seemed to be a well-planned and organized show of defiance, “the students of Abha girls’ college” carried out a major demonstration against disrespect by their teacher and dilapidated and unhealthy conditions of their college.” As usual a massing of the government’s security agencies, including the detested religious police descended on the college campus and tried to quell the “uprising” to no avail, at least for a while. “Fifty three (53) students were injured and transported to different hospitals in the region”, according to Saudi media reports.  Events like this Saudi women students’ demonstration would be a normal practice in most countries, but in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> this is a major, if not an earth shaking, undertaking, especially by women. As has been documented and condemned by the international media and human rights groups, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> is the only country where discriminatory policies against women are institutionalized and enforced by government agencies. Among the most well-known harmful government’s policies against women are denying them the right to drive, denying them freedom of movement without male permission (the denigrating male guardian system) and denying them economic opportunities, employment competitiveness and financial equality.  The Abha girls’ school is not the only women’s educational institution that lacks modern equipment, and a safe and healthy environment. Most Saudi girl’s schools are located in rented, neglected and unsafe structures. One would think the Saudi authorities would spend the people’s money on modern schools, hospitals, water treatment and better healthcare systems for all. Instead, the Saudi rulers and business people are investing in building infrastructure such as the proposed rail system to connect the Saudi state with Jordan and the rest of the autocratic Gulf monarchies as well as the proposed bridge to connect <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> with <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region></st1:place>.  The current Saudi government’s actions and policies in general, as well as Saudi males’ choking domination over women will only expedite what the regime is imprudently trying to avoid, a people uprising against their common oppressor as others in the region have done. <o:p> </o:p> The Saudi Doctrine: A Lethal Threat to Freedom of Expression<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> Championed by the Saudi regime, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s UN Resolution 16/18 calls for any criticism of Islam to be criminalized internationally; harmless tweets are now grounds for torture and possible execution as evidenced by the arrest and deportation of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-saudi-blogger-idUSTRE81C13720120213" target="_blank">Mr. Hamza Kashgari</a> from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Malaysia</st1:country-region> to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> to face charges of apostasy and blasphemy.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: The minute a harmless expression concerning the Prophet Mohammed was tweeted by a Saudi columnist and blogger, 23-year-old Hamza Kashgari (Hamza), thousands of angry responses called for his blood for the "crime" of "blasphemy and apostasy" which are punishable by death in Muslim Countries. Hamza's misfortune started when he tweeted a few <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/feb/17/twitter-blasphemy-hamza-kashgari-islam?newsfeed=true" target="_blank">messages</a> explaining an imaginary conversation he had with Prophet Mohammed in which he told the Prophet, "On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you've always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you."<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> In non-Muslim countries, this would be considered personal opinion at best, or who cares, he is entitled to his personal opinion. Not in Muslim countries, especially in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499" target="_blank">whose king</a> and many of its population insist that Islam is the religion of peace, forgiveness and the only faith that can save humanity.<o:p></o:p> Within a few hours after Hamza’s tweets hit the social media, more than 30 thousand angry responses flooded internet chat rooms, websites and videos. Some Saudi clerics called for Hamza's execution and put bounty money on his head. Ironically, the very same clerics who demanded Hamza’s torture and execution for offending the Prophet Mohammed consider celebrating the Prophet’s birthday a sacrilege. They want people to celebrate and glorify the Prophet all the time, not only once a year. In addition, any celebration of occasions other than the two major Muslim Eids (Al-Fiter and Eldha, marking the end of Ramadan fasting and completion of the Hajj’s annual rituals) are considered Bid’ah, a novelty, or infidel’s tradition. <o:p></o:p>   <o:p></o:p> Realizing that his life was threatened, Hamza took the first flight out of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> to seek asylum in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:country-region></st1:place>, a non-Muslim state in which freedom of expression and individual liberty are enshrined in a non-sectarian constitution. Unluckily for Hamza, he had to change flights in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Malaysia</st1:country-region></st1:place>, a country the West gullibly praises as a moderate Muslim state.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> What Hamza did not know was that the Saudi authorities had called their counterparts in the Malaysian regime in Kuala Lumpur and instructed them to arrest and return Hamza to Saudi Arabia, where he will most likely be tortured, executed, or deposited for decades in a Saudi dungeon—much like Hadi Al-Mutaif of Najran, who at the age of 18 was sentenced to death for saying “pray on --" (one of the Prophet’s private parts). He was spared the death sentence because of global pressure, but incarcerated for 18 years, from 1994 to 2012.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> It’s not a surprise that the Saudi clerics reacted with vengeance, that’s what they are paid to do. However, one would think by now that the Saudi people would have taken advantage of Hamza’s controversial tweets and engaged in constructive discussions about taboos imposed on them by their autocratic and theocratic rulers, who use religion to divide, oppress, segregate, control and exploit them.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p>  What concerns us at the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is not what Hamza said, but his right to express his personal views freely.  However, freedom of unfavorable religious expressions under the Saudi ruling family’s system is considered an insult to the state and its rulers. According to a <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article377672.ece" target="_blank">royal decree issued by King Abdullah in April 2011</a><a name="135b19cbe5a06e00_135b117fd0e430c7_135ab6"></a>, criticism of the royals and their clerical front men is forbidden -- which puts these exclusive rulers on the same footing as the Prophet.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The saga of Hamza and Malaysia’s decision to arrest a transient passenger and deport him to be tortured in Saudi Arabia must be taken gravely by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, as correctly noted by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2012/feb/15/saudi-journalist-hamza-kashgari-tweets" target="_blank">British blogger/columnist</a> Andrew Brown: “The case of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/us-saudi-blogger-idUSTRE81C13720120213" target="_blank">Hamza Kashgari</a>, a young Saudi journalist who has just been deported from Malaysia to face trial on charges of blasphemy, is one that should frighten and disgust anyone who cares about freedom of speech or religion.”  <o:p></o:p> As barbaric as it may be, torture and execution are common practices under the Saudi state’s Shariah law as evidenced by 79 executions in 2011 and 8 in Jan. and Feb. 2012--the year just started.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> The repercussions of Hamza’s misfortune are dangerously multifaceted. The Saudi regime wants to remind its already subjugated citizenry that although they may run, they will have no place to hide, especially in Muslim countries.<o:p></o:p> The regime also wants to convince Muslims worldwide that the Saudi rulers are the only true defenders of Islam, especially at a time when Muslim parties are ascending to power in countries like <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Tunisia</st1:country-region></st1:place>. The Saudi autocracies fear that these parties will overshadow them because they are elected by and accountable to the masses whose revolutions put them in power.<o:p></o:p> In addition, the Saudi autocracies want to remind the beneficiaries of their largess and nepotism, especially the 56 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), headquartered in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>, that far-reaching financial and religious measures will be applied if Saudi demands are not readily heeded as in the example of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Malaysia</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p> However, the real target of Saudi religious and economic intimidation and blackmail are Western democracies, their institutionalized religious freedoms, and freedom of all forms of expression. This is what the OIC’s sponsored United Nations (UN) Resolution 16/18 is designed to accomplish: silence freedom of expression. It must be rejected by “anyone who cares about freedom of expression and religion.”<o:p></o:p> Contrary to its misleading tone and the disingenuous argument of its promoters, defenders, appeasers and apologists in the West, UN Resolution 16/18 (“anti-religion defamation”) is intended to criminalize freedom of speech and individual liberty, globally.  The question that Secretary Clinton and her European counterpart (s) must ask when they meet with representatives of the OIC to discuss 16/18 is why criticism or defamation of religion leads to violence only by Muslims in and out of their lands of origins. If any more discussions of this anti-freedom-of-expression resolution are necessary, they must be held publicly so Muslims and non-Muslims can see and hear the damage 16/18 would do to them. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Finally, UN Resolution 16/18 is predicated on the August 5, 1990 Arab Declaration on Human Rights which unequivocally states that Shariah law supersedes all civilizational norms and universally accepted declarations on human rights: “Every man shall have the right, within the framework of Shari’ah, to free movement and to select his place of residence whether inside or outside his country and, if persecuted, is entitled to seek asylum in another country” (Article12.) This is proof that if it were not for Shariah law, Saudi writer Hamza would not have been arrested by the Malaysian bandits and sent to be tortured in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Saudi Government“…Promote the Values of Freedom, Justice and Equality?<o:p></o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: In a recent speech to a large gathering of Muslim representatives in Latin America and the Caribbean in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Buenos Aires</st1:City>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Argentina</st1:country-region></st1:place>, Saudi <a href="http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article582746.ece">Deputy Islamic Affairs Minister Abdul Aziz Al-Ammar</a> emphasized  “… <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s efforts to support Muslim minority communities in different parts of the world without interfering in the internal affairs of their countries.” What help the Saudi regime could possibly offer to Muslim communities in the <st1:place w:st="on">Western Hemisphere</st1:place> that could improve their lives?  Muslims in the West are doing extremely well in every sense of the word. Unlike the mostly oppressed people in the Muslim countries, Muslim communities in the West have religious and political freedom, individual liberties and economic opportunities that are superior to anything they had or dreamt of having in their countries of origins. <o:p></o:p> In fact, Muslims thrive in non-Muslim countries than they do in their own. This is because they are treated equally under the rule of non-sectarian laws that are applicable to all citizens and residents of Western societies. None of this can be said about any Muslim country, specifically <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> where non-Muslims and non-Saudi Muslim communities have no right under the Saudi Shariah law. They are not even allowed to practice their beliefs nor do they have any protection from their Saudi employers’ abuses.  <o:p></o:p> It’s well known that the Saudis hand out substantial sums of money to Muslim organizations, Mosques and religious schools throughout the <st1:place w:st="on">Western Hemisphere</st1:place> and the rest of the world. The Saudi regime’s very well designed strategy is to promote Islam, specifically its brand, the Wahhabi austere doctrine, through varieties of venues including businesses, mosques, embassies, prominent educational institutions, Islamic schools and interfaith dialogues. The objective behind the Saudi support for Muslim communities is deep and dangerous. They want to implant pockets of Muslims communities, especially in the West, who identify with Islamic teachings and traditions regardless where they live. <o:p></o:p> The Saudi strategy to empower Muslim communities in the West and elsewhere are handled by top Saudi government officials. In Feb. 2010, former Saudi <a href="http://www.aleqt.com/2010/05/02/article_387444.html">Defence Minister, Prince Sultan summoned</a> the most powerful princes, financiers and clerics including Saudi Foreign and Intelligence minister, minister of the treasury and a horde of clerics and other officials to his lavish palace in Riyadh and instructed them to increase their support for Muslim communities in their adopted countries. He told them those communities should be able to build or develop their Muslim identity within their areas of living.   <o:p></o:p>  Staying the Course is Unsustainable<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> CDHR’s Analysis: <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21548973">The Saudi regime continues to rely on obsolete methods</a> of ruling their population at a time when domestic, regional, and global events and trends demand drastic restructuring of the dated Saudi social, economic, political, religious, and educational institutions. Despite its unprecedented income derived from high petroleum prices, Saudi per capita income is the lowest of all the Gulf Arab states. The country suffers from rampant corruption, especially at the highest levels of government. This is due to a total lack of accountability, transparency, freedom of the press, and the ruling family’s control of the entire national income and treasury. Unemployment among the youth, among men and women alike, remains very high because most of the jobs in the country, from hotel receptionists to high tech experts, are given to expatriates.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p>  <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> employs about 8 to 10 million expatriates, the overwhelming majority of whom are imported from poverty-stricken Asian countries and are willing to accept any compensation under severe, often inhumane conditions. The rest are technocrats who come to perform jobs the Saudis lack the proper training to undertake. This is due to a poor school system dominated by the religious establishment, which is opposed to non-religious education. In addition, the regime continues to emphasize nomadic and religious teachings and traditions such as King Abdullah’s brainchild, the lavish Al-Janadriyah annual nomadic festivals, and Defense Minister Prince Salman’s favorite project, memorization of the Qur’an, in which he personally pays cash prizes (“from his hard earned personal income”). The religious establishment, the long arm of the system, continues to issue fatawi against reformers and critics of the system’s anti-democratic policies and practices.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> What seems to be incredibly lacking is a coherent and forward-looking leadership that realizes the Saudi people, especially the burgeoning youth population, are becoming more informed and sophisticated, and they are increasingly aware of their legitimate social, economic, and political rights as they compare their misfortune with the fortunes of their counterparts regionally and globally. For their own survival and for the country’s prosperity and stability, the autocratic and theocratic Saudi dynasties ought to wake up and see reality for what it is, not a desert mirage. The Saudi people are changing, the Arab World is changing, and the world is changing while the ruling Saudi dynasties continue to pursue policies whose time has passed many decades ago. <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> Due to its centrality to Islam and its possession of large but dwindling quantities of petroleum deposits—Venezuela has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia now—stability and security of Saudi Arabia are of major concern to Muslims and non-Muslims. The Saudi rulers must change their pre-modern thinking, however, and realize that it is only a matter of time before their disenfranchised population will have no choice but to do what their counterparts in the Arab World did and are still doing. The Saudi population may take to the streets and rid themselves of oppression, corruption, marginalization, and usurpation of their basic rights.<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> There are a few doable steps that could easily be implemented immediately: free elections of the Shura Council, granting women their full citizenship rights (including an end to the destructive ban on driving), declaring the slave-like male guardian system illegal, allowing for religious freedom, and putting an end to press censorship. Opponents to these steps do not have to participate, but Princes Naif and Salman can easily convince them not to stand in the way, especially since the opponents to reform do so largely to show their support for the rulers’ wishes.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> A Glaring Warning to Saudis<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> CDHR’s Commentary:  While the killing of a <a href="http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=28761">Saudi diplomat, Khalaf Mohamamd S. Al Al</a>i, in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, on Tuesday, March 6, 2012 may have been committed by a cold blooded thief, Saudi officials, businesspeople, and house-wives should take notice of this tragedy. There are hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi laborers in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> including family drivers, housemaids, ditch diggers, doctors, and engineers. Like most of the millions of Asian expatriates (many of whom perform cheap labor and live in conditions comparable to “modern slavery”), the Bangladeshis are treated contemptuously by their employers and even worse by government agencies, specifically the labor and judicial agencies. For example, “Saudi authorities beheaded eight Bangladeshi workers who were found guilty of robbing and killing an Egyptian man” in October of 2011.  This cruel practice by far exceeded the code of Hammurabi’s severe punishment, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.   Not only do Bangladeshi laborers and their families have axes to grind against the Saudis, but so too do many of the liberal pro-democracy and non-sectarian citizens of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Bangladesh</st1:country-region></st1:place>. Saudi Arabia is known for its affiliation and support for the notorious Jamaat-e- Islami movement, which is active in Bangladeshi politics and <a href="http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers7/paper699.html">has been tied to Al-Qaeda</a> and other terrorist and extremist groups throughout the Muslim World and in the West   Arabs, Muslims, and non-Muslims associate <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place> with religious extremism, suicide bombers, religious incitements, intolerance, and oppression of women and minorities. Wherever the Saudi people go, they feel negative vibes and receive unwelcome receptions, even from those who live off the Saudi government’s largess and profitable business dealings. Nowhere do such encounters happen more often than in airports, even among those in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s neighboring countries. This reality can be changed by the Saudi people. They can reject the religious extremists amongst them, restructure their institutions and embrace democratic and tolerant values based on human dignity, not race, religion, gender, or ethnicity.  <o:p></o:p>  “…no area better to excel in than the Holy Qur'an”<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> CDHR’s Commentary: Saudi children are pushed into competing in memorizing the Qur’an before they can understand what it means. The skillful memorizers are financially compensated by Saudi Defense Minister, Prince Salman. His objective is to ensure the continuity of the rule of his family, whose legitimacy and ruling longevity depend on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s austere brand of Islam known as Wahhabism. <a href="http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article582745.ece">“Prince Salman’s award for the recitation</a> of the Qur’an represents clearly the great effort in pushing young people and schools to focus on teaching verses from the holy book.”<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Ingraining religion into children’s minds is a long-term investment for the ruling Saudi elites. Like Prince Salam, Interior Minister and Crown Prince Naif cannot imagine a country without adherence to a literal interpretation of the Qur’an and uncompromising enforcement of its tenets by his well-known, ferocious religious police.  Questioned by a journalist in 2009, Prince Naif yelled, “The Kingdom is an Islamic country. Therefore, the Commission of Virtue Promotion and Vice Prevention will be present as long as Islam is present on the earth. The promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, in accordance with the Qur’an and Sunnah, is a major pillar of any Islamic country.”<o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> These two princes now control the country’s external and internal defense and security. They may end up in the Saudi throne unless a palace coup d'état denies them that luxurious inheritance. Naif is the apparent successor to King Abdullah, and Salman is likely to be his Crown Prince. They are the last two members of the powerful Sudairi Seven, seven full brothers born of King Abdul Aziz’s favorite wife.<o:p></o:p>       </div> You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/"> http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <a href="mailto:newsletter@cdhr.info"> newsletter@cdhr.info </a>

Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:49:00 GMT

<html> <head>  <h2 align=center>Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Washington DC</h2> <h4 align=center>  February 7, 2012 </h4><h4 align=center>  Saudi Current News CDHR's Commentary and Analysis <h2 align=center>The Wrong Time to Promote Islam </h2> </h4> </head> <body>  <h4>�The World needs Islamic guidance� Says the King </h4> CDHR's Analysis: In a <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499"> speech</a> read on his behalf at an influential Muslim scholars' conference in November 2011, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sounded self-assured that �Only Islam�s mercy, light and guidance can provide people with a way forward in life and toward the Hereafter.� The King went on to implore all Muslims to convince non-Muslims to come to and embrace the Muslim faith [i.e., the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabi doctrine] because he inexplicably believes that non-Muslims are in need of redemption and �Islam, with its comprehensive divine values and a balanced view of life, is alone capable of rescuing humankind from its current behavioral predicament�� The King reminded Muslims that it�s their obligation to convert non-Muslims to Islam, �The Muslim Ummah has a responsibility to call people to Islam through its Da�wa work around the globe.� Perhaps King Abdullah is not cognizant of the fact that he is presiding over one of the most religiously oppressed and least politically free countries on earth. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, home to its two holiest shrines, the Quran is its constitution and the Shariah is its law. In other words, Saudi Arabia is ruled in accordance with Islamic teachings, laws and commands, as interpreted by the Kingdom's Hambali/Wahhabi �religious� men. King Abdullah�s well-timed and pointed plea to the 1.5 billion Muslims during their holiest occasion, the annual pilgrimage rituals, and its far-reaching implications never made it to Western news outlets, despite the fact that the West is his target. One would think that King Abdullah is asking Muslims to perform the impossible given the current slaughtering of Muslims by other Muslims, but he is not. Millions of people around the world are economically hurting, vulnerable and looking for solutions from any source, specially the divine ones. It is not accidental that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, particularly in Western societies where the overwhelming majority of the populations see Islam as a belief, not as a domineering value system that controls every aspect of its adherents� lives, perceptions and relations with non-Muslims. The majority of Muslims have been brainwashed into believing that the rule of law, freedom of choice and individual liberty are antithesis to divine laws, therefore blasphemous. King Abdullah's call on Muslims to spread Islam and its Shariah law must not be taken lightly. He is the �Custodian� of Islam�s two holiest shrines in Mecca and Madina to which most of the world�s 1.5 billion poverty stricken, oppressed and indoctrinated Muslims look for guidance, instructions and money. It would be na�ve and myopic to think that the King�s call would fall on deaf ears as many in the West seem to think. After all, he is the absolute ruler of the most religiously and financially influential country in Arab and Muslim lands and beyond. Prominent Muslim scholars from the prestigious Al-Azhar University and others have described the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabism, as enemy number one of Islam and Muslims. The former President of Indonesia Abdulrahman Wahid, a world renowned Muslim scholar himself, called on the international community to unite and defeat the Wahhabi doctrine because it poses a deadly threat to democracies and harmony among people. The West should listen and prevent Islamist ideology from taking root in Western societies, where it will result in social strife, divisions and conflict as is the case in many Arab and Muslim countries and communities. Some argue that King Abdullah has made changes to rein in extremist activities. King Abdullah has removed a few clerics and some inflammatory phrases from Saudi schools� text books, eliminated some terrorists in Saudi Arabia and convened interfaith dialogues. While these activities are considered reforms by some, especially in the West, others see them as deceptive window dressing to silence foreign and domestic critics of the debauched Saudi state- imposed doctrine, Wahhabism. In reality, under King Abdullah�s leadership, Islamist religious fervor has been heightened as a result of implicit and explicit Saudi accusations that the West is engaged in a war against Islam. He has strengthened the Saudi clerics by making it illegal to criticize them domestically and has united Muslim countries, including Iran and Turkey, through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which consists of 57 states and is headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Spread of Wahhabism throughout the world has been exponentially intensified under King Abdullah more than under any of his predecessors. <h4> Nigerian Terrorists Boko Haram: Another Saudi Trophy? </h4> CDHR's Analysis: It has become customary to associate the Saudis with terrorism attacks anywhere in the world and for good reason; Saudi youth are the most readily available to be recruited by terrorists� organizations to die for Islam. This is due to Saudis� ubiquitous religious indoctrination in schools, mosques and the government�s tightly controlled media. Whether terror attacks take place in Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia, Pakistan, Lebanon, North Africa, Afghanistan, Yemen, Indonesia, the Philippines, Europe or in the US, Saudi nationals and/or money are most likely to be involved in one form or another. Saudi youth are raised and taught to mistrust non-Muslims and consider them enemy until they submit to Allah�s will and abide by the Shariah law which rejects non-sectarian laws as interpreted by a religious establishment that is appointed by and shares power with the Saudi ruling family. In a chilling <a href="http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sUTuNMcAaFRWuj41C1_S3Xg/view.m?id=15&gid=world/2012/jan/27/boko-haram-nigeria-sharia-law&cat=world"> interview</a>, the spokesman of the murderous Islamist Nigerian Boko Haram, Abu Qaqa revealed what many observers have suspected and predicted: The Saudis train and finance the deadly organization. Abu Qaqa said that members of his terror group have received funds and training from the Saudis. �During the lesser Hajj [Umrah, last August], our leader travelled to Saudi Arabia and met al-Qaida there. We enjoy financial and technical support from them. Anything we want from them we ask them.� The Boko Haram�s objective is to inflict death and destruction on the 70 million Nigerian Christians until �...things are being done according to the dictates of Allah.� Like the Wahhabi trained Taliban extremists in Afghanistan, Boko Haram�s objective is the implementation of Shariah law throughout Nigeria regardless of peoples� r eligious belief according to Abu Qaqa. �There are no exceptions. Even if you are a Muslim and you don't abide by sharia, we will kill you. Even if you are my own father, we will kill you.� It�s not just the extremist groups that believe the austere Saudi brand of Islam must be promoted throughout the world. Spreading Islam, Islamic banking and Shariah law have been one of the Saudi government�s and its religious establishment�s top priorities since the formation of the Saudi/Wahhabi state in the early 1930s. On one hand, they believe in Islam�s supremacy over other beliefs; and on the other, they know they can use religion to achieve their objectives as they did during the start of their violent movement in the middle of the eighteen century. Saudis and other Arab regimes, like the former Libyan dictator Kaddafi, have encouraged and supported the spread and strengthening of Islam everywhere, especially in the West where religious freedom is guaranteed by secular constitutions. This is evidenced by the Saudi�s support for the Chicago based Nation of Islam�s founder Elijah Mohammed and his successors since the 1950s, just to name one group. According to well documented facts in The Looming Tower, and a myriad of other publications, the Saudis, government and businesses, are major contributors to mosques, religious schools and Islamic Study Departments in top educational institutions like Georgetown, Harvard, UC Berkeley and Columbia. In May 2010, Saudi Crown Prince Sultan who died in 2011, summoned the most powerful princes, religious representatives, ministers and royal loyalists to his elaborate Aziziyah Palace in Riyadh to instruct them to �mobilize all modern means available to serve Islam�. He <a href="http://www.aleqt.com/2010/05/02/article_387444.html"> instructed</a> the powerful attendees �to increase support for all Muslim institutions and organizations around the world�. Sultan�s instructions to spread Islam were echoed by his brother King Abdullah in a recent plea read on his behalf to a Muslim scholars� conference during the peak of Muslim annual pilgrimage Mecca in Nov. 2011. King Abdullah <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499"> asked</a> Muslims to spread Islam globally and convert non-Muslims to the faith because, �The world needs the vision and guidance of Islam and Muslims should work hard to make sure this happens.� �Islam is a universal message for all mankind until the Day of Resurrection. The Muslim Ummah has a responsibility to call people to Islam through its Da�wa work around the globe�. Extremists take such declarations as a green light to commit mayhem against non-Muslims and Muslim minorities who don�t adhere to the Saudi twisted interpretation of Muslim text books. <h4> Saudi Arabia is Citadel of Religious Manipulation </h4> CDHR's Analysis: The autocratic and theocratic Saudi/Wahhabi ruling dynasties and their descendants have used religion as an effective tool to achieve their domestic and external objectives since they formed their incredibly well constructed union in the middle of the eighteen century. Domestically, Saudi rulers have used religion to legitimize their absolute authority and to justify their draconian policies. They have used the same methods to extract favorable outcomes from their dealings with other countries, especially Western societies most of whom regard Islam as a belief rather than a value system that controls all aspects of its adherents� lives, behavior, perceptions and relations with non-Muslims. In a well calculated preemptive strategic move, the Saudi rulers are renewing and intensifying their fondness for Salafi (early period, genesis) Islam practiced during the first three generations that followed the establishment of the Muslim faith by Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century. <a href="http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article554744.ece"> Addressing</a> a symposium on Dec. 27, 2011, titled �Salafism: A Shariah approach and a national demand,� Crown Prince Naif, first in line for the Saudi throne after King Abdulla, renewed his family�s commitment to ensure that �Saudi Arabia would continue to follow the Salafist ideology and denounce those who create doubts about this moderate Islamic ideology and link it with terrorism and extremism�. Calling the Saudi Salafi system �moderate� defies reality on the ground and can only be interpreted to mean that a transition from an autocratic to democratic political structure in Saudi Arabia remains elusive under Prince Naif�s f amily�s rule. By embracing and advancing Salafism, Prince Naif in reality is pursuing the same objective stated in Al-Qaeda�s ideological manifesto. Had he read the manifesto, he would have found that it was copied from and based on the teachings of Taqi ad-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah (1263�1328), a renowned and revered Muslim scholar who is known for his Salafi repudiation of Sufi and Shi�a Muslims and more so of Christianity and its adherents. In addition, Prince Naif should have known by now that Ibn Taymiyyah was a follower and admirer of Ahmed Ibn Hanbal, the founder of the most austere brand of Islam, the Hambali, upon which the zealot Saudi/Wahhabi state�s religion is predicated and physically enforced on all Saudi citizens regardless of their religious orientations. Renewing their claim to and praising Salafism at this time is not accidental, but is in response to the Arab Uprising and its consequences. The Saudi rulers are terrified by the current Arab people�s Revolt, but for reasons other than the spread of democratic fervor. They are afraid of being marginalized by the rise to power of Muslim parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Ennahda in Tunisia, among others. The Saudi autocracies know that the majority of their religiously indoctrinated population is more susceptible to less repressive Muslim rule than to secular forms of governing institutions. The Saudi regime�s worst nightmare is the empowerment of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan, in Egypt and their rising influence among the populations of the Gulf region, especially in Saudi Arabia. During the height of Arab nationalism and the anti-autocratic Arab monarchies era under the tyrannical and charismatic former Egyptian orator President Gamal Abdul Nasser in the 1960s and 70s, the Saudis went out of their way to support the Muslim Brotherhood group against Nasser. When Nasser turned against the Brothers and hanged their spiritual leader Sayyid Qutb in 1966, the Saudis welcomed the Brothers with open arms and large bank accounts in the hope that they would mobilized their followers in Egypt and elsewhere to overthrow or neutralize Nasser whom the Saudis had supported at one point to keep the Brothers from overshadowing the Saudi/Wahhabi doctrinal influence in the Muslim World. What the Saudi ruling family failed to take into account was the Egyptian historical contempt for the Saudi/Wahhabi rulers whom they consider backward nomads. For example, while under �nominal Ottoman rule,� another charismatic Egyptian leader, Mohammed Ali Pasha, sent his troops to crus h the Saudi/Wahhabi first state between 1811and 1818. While living in Saudi Arabia in the 1960s and 70s, the escapees and exiled Brothers pursued a duplicitous agenda of their own. They formed alliances with and established strong ties with many Saudi clerics and ordinary subjects which resulted, according to the Saudi regime, in the Mecca1979 Uprising and the occupation of Islam�s holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The Uprising was led by a charismatic Saudi leader (messiah, mehdi), Jhaiman Al-Otabi, with the intent of delegitimizing and overthrowing the Saudi ruling family and its religious establishment. That was averted with help from some Muslim and Western governments, see The Siege of Mecca. Until this day, the Saudis blame the Muslim Brothers for radicalizing and inciting the men who carried out Mecca Uprising and subsequent terrorist attacks inside Saudi Arabia. The Muslim Brothers and other Egyptian religious scholars disagree with the Saudi accusations and <a href="http://watan.com/10/news.html/35-news-extra/2 1652-2010-04-26-20-24-39.html"> labeled</a> Wahhabism �as an idea and movement, a mortal threat to Islam and Muslims�. Given the history and practices of both the Wahhabis and the Muslim Brothers, astute observer won�t find it unreasonable to agree with either side. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood Party has risen to power as a result of the first free elections in Egypt, the Saudis are <a href="http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/440967"> reportedly</a> supporting the Egyptian Salafi Nour Party to make sure that the Muslim Brotherhood Party does not pose a real threat to Saudi/Wahhabi rule at home and its regional and global influence. The intent of Saudi support for the Salafi Nour Party is to create schisms among Egyptian religious groups as they have done successfully in their own society. The Saudis may find it equally advantageous to support weak liberal groups to form a regime that cannot bring unity, democracy or economic prosperity to Egypt without the participation of the Muslim Brotherhood Party. Even though the Saudi regime�s initial interference in derailing the hard won Egyptian Revolution may succeed, in the long run it�s doomed to fail because neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor the Nour Party has anything to offer other t han Shariah law. The Egyptian people did no revolt and die to replace a repressive and corrupt autocratic system with an Islamic totalitarian regime. <h4>Saudi Heroines & Western Ostriches </h4> CDHR's Analysis: While President Obama and his European counterparts are going out of their way to assure Muslims, especially the rich Gulf royals, that the West is not �at war with Islam� but rather with terrorists groups like Al-Qaeda, a cadre of Saudi women is unabashedly challenging Saudi religious extremism and its destructive impact on them, their children, society and the international community. Prominent among those opposing the ferocious, divisive and hate promoting religious extremists is a fearless Saudi Princess, Basma Bint Saud. According to a recent <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/the-acton-princess-calling-for-reform-in-saudi-arabia-6284225.html"> interview</a> by the Independent newspaper, UK, �She is the 115th - and last - child of King Saud, the eldest surviving son of Saudi Arabia's founding monarch Abdul Aziz.� Basma (�Smile� in Arabic) grew up in luxury, was trained by nuns, is a divorced mother of five and a successful restaurateur who is now residing in London to protect her children from possible family reprisal because of her outspokenness. She challenges her family�s tyrannical rule, rampant corruption and dysfunctional institutions which she justifiably blames for the government�s colossal failure to meet its obligations toward its marginalized populations, especially women and children. One of her targets is the ferocious Saudi government�s religious police, known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or the �Hay�ah� in Arabic. She has correctly challenged their religious legitimacy and their offensive treatment of the public, particularly women. Like many Saudis and human rights groups, she largely attributes the country�s backwardness to the Stone Age mentality and spiteful behavior of the Hay�ah as exemplified by their condescending treatment of people as guilty until they prove their innocence. In one of her piercing and expressive <a href="http://www.al-madina.com/node/244059"> narratives</a> she wrote, �I searched and re-searched in history�s archives, in the Prophet and in his Companions� books and found no mention of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice; but found a phrase in the Quran that said: All Muslims should promote virtue and prevent vice.� Princess Basma stands out because of her status and royal affiliations which make her work considerably weighty. However, she is not the only or most productive woman who is challenging the government�s fierce �religious� police and their relentless social, political and economic war against Saudi women whom the illiterate �religious� police consider incomplete human beings, �perpetual minors.� There are many courageous non-royal Saudi women activist pioneers in academia, businesses, finances, media and technical fields, as well as ordinary mothers, sisters and wives who are demanding better and humane treatment including removal of all denigrating restrictions inflicted on women, such as the dehumanizing male guardian system, the driving ban, denial of economic opportunities and forced and childhood marriages which under international declarations on human rights are considered rape and child trafficking. Women like Eman Al Nafjan, Fawzia Al-Bakr, Wajeha Al-Hwaider, Reem Asaad, Alia Banaja, Hatoon Al-Fassi, Suhair Al Qurashi, Manal Al-Sharif, Ebtihal Mubarak, Hissa Hilal and even two of King Abdullah�s daughters, Sitta and Adella, just to name a few, are in the forefront in the struggle for women�s rights which the religious establishment considers a Western value designed to destroy Islam�s holy traditions, which translate to male domination over every aspect of women�s lives and livelihoods. This institutionalized system of social, political and economic discrimination against half of Saudi society, women, could not succeed if it were not for the blessings of the Saudi ruling elites, especially its staunchest supporter, Interior Minister Prince Naif, the next in line to inherit his family�s throne. What�s becoming increasingly and inexplicably clear to the Saudi people in general, but specifically to Saudi women and to other human right activists and analysts, is the West�s continued support for the Saudi autocracy at a time when many Western governments support the Arab people�s uprising, with the exception of Bahrain, against despotism, oppression and the rampant squandering of public wealth. The Saudi people hear, read and see the West fighting Muslim terrorists in many parts of the world, and in the meantime, they are supporting a system whose intuitions are well known for their propagation and financing of religious extremists and terrorists worldwide. Furthermore, many Saudis and other Arab thinkers, analysts and observers in the Arab World have become increasingly suspicious of the West�s overt support for the unprecedented Arab people�s uprising. Many began to theorize that the West is in favor of empowering anti democracy Islamist and Salafist groups as is the case in Egypt and Tunisia now. These speculators argue, mostly in social media and in one-to-one discussions, that by reaching out to and embracing religiously based parties who rose to power as a result of the Arab Uprising, the West has duplicitous objectives. They use the West�s acquiescing to Saudi efforts to derail and/or Islamize the Arab Uprising as further evidence of the West�s hidden objectives. The most convincing argument about the West�s double standard and assumed objectives is presented by man Saudi women activists. Many Saudi women from all walks of life ask simple questions that are hard to dismiss as conspiratorial or fabricated stories. They ask: If we are willing to face imprisonment, lose our jobs and families, be stigmatized and humiliated under the autocratic and theocratic Saudi system for trying to rid ourselves and the world of dangerous ideologues why does not the West, which claims to be fighting the same extremists, support our struggle publically and unequivocally? The Saudi women�s march for their legitimate and citizenship rights are unstoppable or reversible whether the Saudi ruling men and their supporters in the West like it or not. Given this irrefutable reality, wouldn�t it be prudent for Western government and their institutions to support Saudi women, especially since they are in the forefront in the fight against religious extremism which poses a real threat to democracies worldwide? <h4> Saudi Arabia Needs Less, Not More, Religious Police (Hay�ah) </h4> CDHR's Analysis: As the Saudi government�s top behavioral, social, religious and political disciplinary and spying agency, the religious police (known caustically as �The Commission for Promotion of Vice and Prevention of �Virtue� is the state�s only entity whose mostly illiterate recruits are given absolute authority to stop, interrogate, humiliate, beat and imprison anyone at anytime, anywhere in the country and receive praise for their barbaric misconduct. They are instructed by their handler Crown Prince Naif, who is also first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, to consider all citizens guilty until proven innocent. Referred to as Mutaween (domesticators) the religious police�s top priority is to make sure that women are camouflaged in black, men and women are segregated in public and that men have to prove that the women they walk with are their wives, mothers or sisters. The religious police are also empowered to make sure that any gathering of more than three or four people is interrupted and dispersed. All of this is done to eliminate any possibility of public cohesiveness that might lead to public unity which the system considers a mortal threat to its absolute rule. The Mutaween are the most feared and loathed government agency by the overwhelming majority of the Saudis and expatriates. The Mutaween�s overriding task is to instill fear of authority and ensure people�s distrust of each other. As advised by the 16th century Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccol� Machiavelli, the Prince is better off being feared not loved. This is the most used phrase by the religious police: obey God and Wali Elemr, the master of your affairs, the Prince. This is not accidental, but is a convoluted royal scheme designed to deflect the public�s wrath from the real source of their country�s multitude of rampant social, political, religious, economic and educational deficiencies. The leadership and the management of the religious police is not a straightforward operation. Whoever is appointed by the king to rule it has to make sure that the wish of its top overseer Prince Naif is met despite increasing public condemnation of the religious police�s heavy-handedness and the role they are supposed to be assigned to play. In other words, the public has begun to see that the role of the religious police is anything but religious. The public�s resentment toward the religious police and the deceptive role they play is not covertly ignored by the royal family. King Abdullah has changed the management of the religious police three times since he inherited his family�s throne in 2005. The recent appointment of Dr. Abdullatif Bin Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh, a member of the ruling family�s power base the Al-Sheikh religious establishment, to manage the violent and mean spirited religious police is seen as a clever maneuver by the King. Dr. Al-Sheikh has spoken against severe gender segregation and restrictions on women�s right to work in segregated workplaces. However, he is planning to increase the already ubiquitous presence of abrasive religious police. He ��has plans to open up even more branches� and to tame the trigger-happy religious police to ��treat people politely and not to lose their temper quickly if they are agitated.� However, the Saudi people, especially women, have to keep in mind that Dr. Al-Sheikh is a member of the two absolute dynasties that have ruled parts or all of Saudi Arabia since 1744. He and his Al-Asheikh family have a lot to gain by ensuring the continuity of the Al-Saudi ruling family. <h4>Unity Among Gulf Monocracies Doomed to Fail </h4> CDHR's Analysis: Threatened by developing domestic and regional challenges, the six autocratic Arab monarchs of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) huddled in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Dec. 19 and 20, 2011, to strategize against internal and external threats to their regimes. Their fears were voiced by King Abdullah warning that �the security of Saudi Arabia and its Arab neighbors [meaning the ruling dynasties] was being targeted.� He implored the monarchs of the smaller Gulf States to �move beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity�, which translates to a formal union dominated by the Saudi ruling family. Prior to the Riyadh meeting and King Abdullah�s call for unity, the GCC had invited the two remaining autocratic Arab kings of Morocco and Jordan to join the GCC even though they are geographically distant from the Gulf. Indigenous analysts of Gulf dynamics and critics of the ruling dynasties speculated that the intent behind this move was to form a united front among these autocracies against the spread of the pro-democracy Arab Uprising. The GCC�s membership invitation has been shelved due to unfavorable public reaction, especially in the social media since public criticism of the ruling families is impermissible. King Abdullah�s call for a united Arab Gulf States �in a single entity�, ostensibly to protect all GCC members from internal and external threats is destined to fail. Gulf Arab analysts attribute such failure to the fact that the primary objective of establishing a �single entity� is perceived by the smaller states� rulers as an attempt to consolidate Saudi hegemony over the Gulf States and thus strengthen the Saudis� bargaining position regionally, particularly regarding future settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, there are more compelling reasons why the �single entity� proposal would fail. Prominent among the reasons for the likely failure of the Saudi proposal is the historical mistrust of the Saudi royals among the ruling dynasties of the smaller and weaker Gulf States. Based on their historical experience, the overlords of these smaller Gulf Arab States consider the Saudi royals to be condescending, too rigid, heavy-handed, and confrontational. In addition, the rulers of the smaller States see the Saudi policies as a menace to their �live and let live� strategies, not only within their heterogeneous societies, but also with Iran, with whom they share borders and beneficial relations. The recent transition of power from the ailing and aging Saudi King Abdullah to two well-known pugnacious Princes, Naif and Salman, is more likely to lessen instead of increase cooperation, let alone create unity among the autocracies of the Gulf. Furthermore, the ruling dynasties of the smaller Gulf States can afford to reject the ambitious Saudi plan to form a �single entity� which they know would be dominated by the Saudi ruling family and its Wahhabi ideology. In the early 1990s, the West began to shift its military presence from Saudi Arabia to the smaller Gulf States; as time passed, the West found these rulers more responsive to Western needs than the Saudis. The gradual shift of Western dependence from the Saudi ruling family to the rulers of the smaller States has diminished Saudi influence in the region and has rendered obsolete the smaller Gulf States� need for Saudi protection. The efforts by the Saudis to recruit the kings of Morocco and Jordan to the GCC cartel in order to fend off the spread of the Arab Uprising to the Gulf have been unsuccessful. This and their apparent failure to unite the Gulf Arab States rulers �in a single entity� under their control are more likely to increase the Saudi rulers� reliance on domestic oppression and intense use of religion to promote their self-interest. However, pursuing these policies will increase the Saudi people�s discontent, which will to domestic strife and regional isolation, eventually hastening the fall of the Saudi monarchy to the very forces they are trying to escape. <footer> Join us: The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization based in Washington, DC. CDHR provides new and accurate information for the benefit of the public, the business community and policy makers about the current situation in Saudi Arabia. CDHR�s goal is to help bring about a peaceful democratic transition from a single-family autocratic rule to a participatory political system where the rights of all Saudi citizens are protected under the rule of civil laws. The Center could not undertake this important task without the active support of visionary individuals and foundations. CDHR needs the support of people who understand the importance of building a united, prosperous and tolerant society in Saudi Arabia where people are empowered to determine their destiny and the fate of their important, but unstable country. Please visit our website (www.cdhr.info) to lear n about our work and see what you might do to support the many Saudi men and women who risk their livelihood and lives to promote a just political system that rejects all forms of incitement, religious hatred and oppression at home and abroad. Your financial investment in democracy building in Saudi Arabia will benefit the Saudi people, the Middle East, the Muslim world, and the international community. Your <a href="http://www.cdhr.info/"> contribution</a> will make a difference and is greatly appreciated. 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Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:12:00 GMT

<html> <head>  <h2 align=center>Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Washington DC</h2> <h4 align=center>  December 21, 2011 </h4><h4 align=center>  CDHR's Commentary on Current News and Developments Saudi Response to Arab Uprising <h2 align=center></h2> </h4> </head> <body>  <h4>The World needs Islamic guidance� Says the King</h4> CDHR�s Commentary: In a speech read on his behalf at an�influential Muslim scholars' conference in November 2011, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sounded self-assured that �Only Islam�s mercy, light and guidance can provide people with a way forward in life and toward the Hereafter.� The King went on to implore all Muslims to convince non-Muslims to come to and embrace the Muslim faith [i.e., the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabi doctrine] because he inexplicably believes that non-Muslims are in need of�redemption and �Islam, with its comprehensive divine values and a balanced view of life, is alone capable of rescuing humankind from its current behavioral predicament�� The King reminded Muslims that it�s their obligation to convert non-Muslims to Islam, �The Muslim Ummah has a responsibility to call people to Islam through its Da�wa work around the globe.� Perhaps King Abdullah is not cognizant of the fact that he is presiding over one of the most�religiously oppressed and least politically�free countries on earth. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, home to its two holiest shrines, the Quran is its constitution and the Shariah is its law. In other words, Saudi Arabia is ruled in accordance with Islamic teachings, laws and commands, as interpreted by the Kingdom's Hambali/Wahhabi �religious� men.� King Abdullah�s well-timed and pointed plea to the 1.5 billion Muslims during their holiest occasion, the annual pilgrimage rituals, and its far-reaching implications never made it to Western news outlets, despite the fact that the West is his target. One would think that King Abdullah is asking Muslims to perform the impossible given the current slaughtering of Muslims by other Muslims, but he is not. Millions of people around the world are economically hurting, vulnerable and looking for solutions from any source, specially the divine ones. It is not accidental that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, particularly in Western societies where the overwhelming majority of the populations see Islam as a belief, not as a domineering value system that controls every aspect of its adherents� lives, perceptions and relations with non-Muslims. The majority of Muslims have been brainwashed into believing that the rule of law, freedom of choice and individual liberty are antithesis to divine laws, therefore blasphemous. King Abdullah's call on Muslims to spread Islam and its Shariah law must not be taken lightly. He is the �Custodian� of Islam�s two holiest shrines in Mecca and Madina�to which�most of the world�s 1.5 billion poverty stricken, oppressed and indoctrinated Muslims look for guidance, instructions and money. It would be na�ve and myopic to think that the King�s call would fall on deaf ears as many in the West seem to think. After all, he is the absolute ruler of the most religiously and financially influential country in Arab and Muslim lands and beyond. Prominent Muslim scholars from the prestigious Al-Azhar University and others have described the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabism, as enemy number one of Islam and Muslims. The former President of Indonesia Abdulrahman Wahid, a world renowned Muslim scholar himself, called on the international community to unite and defeat the Wahhabi doctrine because it poses a�deadly threat to democracies and harmony among people. The West should listen and prevent Islamist ideology from taking root in Western societies, where it will�result in social strife, divisions and conflict as is the case in many Arab and Muslim countries and communities. Some argue that King Abdullah has made changes to rein in extremist activities. King Abdullah has removed a few clerics and some inflammatory phrases from Saudi schools� text books, eliminated some terrorists in Saudi Arabia and convened interfaith dialogues. While these activities are considered reforms by some, especially in the West, others see them as deceptive window dressing to silence foreign and domestic critics of the debauched Saudi state- imposed doctrine, Wahhabism. In reality, under King Abdullah�s leadership, Islamist religious fervor has been heightened as a result of implicit and explicit Saudi accusations that the West is engaged in a war against Islam. He has strengthened the Saudi clerics by making it illegal to criticize them domestically and has united Muslim countries, including Iran and Turkey, through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which consists of 57 states and is headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Spread of Wahhabism throughout the world has been exponentially intensified under King Abdullah more than under any of his predecessors. <a href=" http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499">Read Article</a> <h4>Islamists Have Nothing to Offer, But Religious Totalitarianism </h4> CDHR�s Commentary: While there is legitimate apprehension circulating in the Middle East and around the world regarding Muslim parties wining preliminary elections in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, one has to listen to what the heads of these parties say. They are promising an end to corruption, poverty and oppression. These are the reasons that drove millions of people to the streets�to risk their lives to rid their countries of oppressive despots who have subjugated them for decades. These Muslim parties� fates will be the same as the ones they are replacing if they do not keep their commitments to the new generation of Arabs whose worldly aspirations and needs overcame their crippling fear of their states� cruel police and security apparatus. It seems that many Western analysts and experts are overlooking an extraordinary factor when they write about or discuss the Arab Uprising even when facts on the ground contradict their abysmal forecasts. All an astute observer has to do is to look at the freedom and justice seekers (men and women) facing states� tanks and bullets in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. They are willing to pay the ultimate price to end centuries of religious and political totalitarianism. This new generation of Arabs who are tortured, shot at, killed,�starved and incarcerated will not stop at anything less than liberation from the yoke of oppression�imposed by�the men and institutions that have coercively dominated their lives and livelihoods for decades and centuries. For the first time in their tumultuous history, the Arab people are looking inward instead of blaming outsiders for their systems� gargantuan failures to meet their basic worldly needs. Unlike the Islamists, the new generation of Arabs yearning for freedom�did not have platforms to air their grievances until now. �They discovered that freedom is not free and decided to create platforms from which they can make their voices heard and their needs met. Tahrir (liberation) Squares are the new platforms where they can�force whoever wins elections and rules think twice before going against their demands for better governance that works for them instead of enslaving them. What the Arab masses, rich and poor, are fighting and dying for is above and beyond what the Islamists are capable of offering: liberation from all forms of dictatorship, especially oppressive religious�taboos and the imposition of stifling doctrines. One can learn a lesson from the Iranian masses� support for the Islamists Revolution in 1979, until they discovered the Mullahs for who they really�are: Power seeking hooligans. The Arabs, especially liberals, youth, women and minorities, in Tunis and Egypt are already engaging the Islamists politically and in some cases physically over their political future. At the end of the day, the freedom fighters will win, especially if they receive genuine support from the West which has thus far taken very cautious measures in selective places and continues to support tyrannical systems in places like Saudi Arabia and other�small but wealthy Gulf states which finance Islamists and anti-democracy groups in Arab and Muslim countries and the international community, especially the<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/egypt-election-runoffs_n_1129135.html"> West.</a> <h4> The Tehran Theocratic Mullahs� Loathing for �The Great Satan� and Its Saudi �Puppets� </h4> CDHR Analysis: There is nothing that the theocratic Mullahs in Tehran would rather do than tarnish the absolute Saudi monarchy�s image and render insignificant its leadership among Muslims and within the international community. It is a well-known fact that these last two tyrannical Muslim regimes are competing for Arab and Muslim leadership in the hope of securing global recognition and legitimacy for their draconian rule at home. In addition, the cruel Iranian regime will stop at nothing to drive a bigger wedge between the absolute Saudi monarchs and their most important protecting ally, the US. However, plotting to attack the Saudi embassy in Washington and kill its hundreds of personnel including King Abdullah�s yes-man ambassador will back fire in a way even the vicious Iranian regime is not suicidal enough to undertake. The similarities between the autocratic and theocratic regime in Tehran and their counterparts in Riyadh are well known. They are anti-democracy, anti-women, anti-non-Muslims, anti-human rights and share a common objective of ridding Arab and Muslim countries of Western influence so they can continue to oppress their people in the name of God and Shariah law. Both foster, export and finance extremist and terrorist groups in order to spread their influence and extract concessions from Western governments as the Saudis did with Britain regarding Arms Sales� bribery in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade">2008.</a> Knowing that Tehran�s despots and their counterparts in Riyadh are�brimming with hate for the US and Israel as well as for each other, it should not be surprising, albeit unlikely in this case, that someone in Tehran would attempt to hire assassins to hit a small Saudi target, especially in the West. The theocrats in Tehran are vying for a leading role among Muslims; and bullying their Saudi competitors along with their US ally would enhance the image of the Iranian regime among many Muslims regardless of religious differences. Like the Saudi royals (recall King Abdullah's urging President Obama to "cut the head of the snake�), the tyrannical regime in Tehran wants to drag the US and/or Israel into a prolonged war in an Arab or Muslim country so it can convince the rest of the mostly poverty stricken and marginalized Muslims of the �Crusaders� war� against Islam and Muslims. Even harsh critics of Arab and Muslim ruling hooligans� politics and practices would find the Justice Department�s alleged Iranian escapade to be unconvincing, especially at a time when the Iranian regime knows misbehaving could generate a crippling military response by a combination of regional and international coalitions. The Tehran theocrats are vicious, but not suicidal. <h4> �What Do Saudi Women Want?� </h4> CDHR Analysis: Saudi women want the most basic rights: �recognition as full human beings, full citizenship, financial independence and the right to move freely. With gargantuan respect and admiration for Ms. Eman Al Nafjan�s intelligence, courage and struggle, I beg to differ with some of her insinuations that the majority of Saudi women prefers to live under what amounts to a modern slavery system.� I agree with Ms. Al Nafjan that many women (and men) in the motherland remain nostalgic for their past and fearful of what�s denied to them. I disagree that the majority of the severely disenfranchised population, especially women, �would not appreciate something better than living under institutionalized discriminatory and intimidating policies, harshly enforced by a system whose hegemonic survival depends on dividing, conquering and ensuring the population's dependence on handouts and omnipresent fear�of God, whipping sticks and the sword. Like any people, if Saudi women and men have free cho ices based on facts and knowledge of better alternatives, the overwhelming majority is more likely to denounce every aspect of their rasping culture, distorted religious teachings and suffocating social and political arrangements. The Saudi people can learn, think for themselves and distinguish between the good, the bad and everything in between. They can change and in due time embrace values that are the�antithesis of what they have been programmed into believing are supreme to all other values, especially those of the �infidels," which most educated Saudi men and women strive to attain. This is evidenced by traveling Saudis, most of whom cannot wait to�board a plane and strip off their suffocating and unsightly attire and to slip into the outfits people they have been told are dirty, unethical sinners�and hell-bound� blasphemous unbelievers. I agree with Ms. Al Nafjan and millions of Saudis and other Muslims that religion has been used as �a tool of oppression, discrimination, segregation and intolerance�against those who think out of the box, as well as non-Muslims and Muslim minorities. This is why many Muslims are not only questioning the authenticity of their faith, but severely criticizing it and many are leaving it altogether. The quandary is not that�Saudi women and men cannot labor for, embrace and appreciate independence, self-reliance and liberation from the yoke of political, social, sexual and religious totalitarianism, it�s the system under which they are forced to live and coercively obey. All the people need is freedom of choices to venture into the unknown, explore their untapped potential and put them in good use for themselves and for their influential country. What needs to be done to alter for the people of the motherland, including those who rule, is a re-interpretation of Muslim textbooks, leaving religion to the individual, transforming all institutions to meet people�s needs now and�installing an accountable and transparent mechanism whereby the people are in charge of their country�s safety, prosperity and destiny. This will take time to blossom, but the time to start is now before violence becomes the only hope for people�to realize their dreams and become the authors of their fate. Finally and based on first hand experiences, I found Saudi women to be�the most resilient people I have ever met, worked with, befriended and watched since�I was a child in the oppressed southern region of the vast land of Arabia. Sadly and inexplicably, the theocratic and autocratic iron-fisted ruling men are not taking notice of the people's aspirations and based on their history and state of mind they are not likely going to change until they have no choice. By then it will be too late for everyone as this article <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/what_do_saudi_women_want">concludes.</a> <h4>Women Driving Will End Virginity in Saudi Arabia </h4> CDHR�s Analysis: The most offensive new charade to justify barring women from driving was issued by the religious wing of the Saudi ruling men recently. It stated that, �Within 10 years of the ban being lifted� there would be �no more virgins� in the Islamic kingdom.� �To augment its tradition of denigration of Saudi women, the religious establishment�s report went on to say allowing women to drive will �provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce�. This accusatory and repugnant declaration by the Saudi government�s religious establishment is designed to debase Saudi women, maintain man�s domination over every aspect of their lives and turn people against each other as they do by turning the majority Sunni Muslims against their brothers and sisters religious minorities. All is done because God and Islam demand it according to the Saudi High Religious Council. Prior to and during the early days of the establishment of Islam some 15 centuries ago, women in the vast and inhospitable Arabian deserts were free to travel, work with men in farms, herding and grazing animals, harvesting and selling their goods in communal markets and most of them barely covered most of their bodies. Incomprehensibly, 15 centuries later, Saudi women are not allowed to travel, seek jobs, go to schools, obtain life-saving medication or give birth to babies in hospitals without male (male-guardian) permission. They are prohibited from mingling with men (publicly or in the work place), they cannot choose their spouses, practice law in courts or vote in cosmetic municipal elections. They are the only people on this planet that are barred from driving despite the fact that many Saudi women are doctors, scientists, brain surgeons, professors, businesswomen and pilots. However, there are limits to how much people can endure. � The Saudi women are fighting back in all fronts, especially for their most basic right: �free movement. In recent years, many Saudi women have been challenging the system�s nebulous policies and futile reasoning for denying them the right to drive. Their demands to drive draw domestic and international attention and support, consequently severe reprisal by their insecure government, including imprisonments, intimidations and threats to some of them, their families and their supporters. The regime, through its religious establishment, is resorting to the most abhorrent and insulting reasons to perpetuate its repression of women as this article <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8930168/Allowing-women-drivers-in-Saudi-Arabia-will-be-end-of-virginity.html ">indicates.</a> <h4>Crown Prince Nayef�the Next Saudi King? </h4> CDHR�s Analysis: A shadow has darkened prospects for democratic reform in Saudi Arabia with the announcement that the most envied, loathed, and feared man in the country is now heir to the throne. Unless the present king, the elderly and ailing Abdullah, outlives him, the newly named Crown Prince Nayef � himself in his late 70s � is likely to preside over an even more repressive kingdom than Saudi Arabia already is today. Unpopular domestically, regionally, and globally, Nayef is known for his heavy-handedness, his unequivocal support for the religious establishment, his objection to judicial and political reforms, his opposition to the rights of women and minorities, and his control of the entire Saudi security apparatus. The Libyan people's appreciation for Sarkozy and Cameron should have sent a clear and chilling message to the remaining Arab autocracies like the Saudi royals. Not only should Arab dictators be worried about their people�s hunger for freedom, but the recipients of Arab regimes� largess in the West should rethink their allegiance to an irreversible fading era in the Arab world. Arab regimes� apologists in the West continue to insist that most Arabs and Muslims are content to be semi slaves to their religion, culture and their absolute rulers. Despite all this, and because of the challenges facing the Saudi regime at home and abroad, King Abdullah and some senior members of the ruling family deem Nayef to be the right man to rule Saudi Arabia next. President Obama, too, issued a positively laudatory statement��I congratulate King Abdullah and the Saudi people on the selection of Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as crown prince. We in the United States know and respect him for his strong commitment to combating terrorism and supporting regional peace and security��even though Prince Nayef is reported to have refused to cooperate with the FBI after the 9/11 attacks on the United States and still insists that those attacks were caused by a Zionist conspiracy. Needless to say, Nayef has never�declared his support for the Arab Peace Initiative with Israel. For the West and other major oil-consuming countries, stability in Saudi Arabia, still the largest oil exporter, supersedes all other considerations, regardless of the price and who must pay. Any major disruption in oil production and shipment from Arabia could create global economic havoc with unmanageable consequences. This situation will continue until a reasonably priced alternative to oil is available. What is being myopically overlooked, however, not out of ignorance but out of disconcerting necessity, is that Nayef�s ascent to the throne could expedite the very instability in Saudi Arabia that so many are hoping to avoid. If he becomes king, Nayef will preside over a fast-changing and restless society that is less fearful of authority than in the past. Nonstop, lively exchanges on social media show that the Saudi people expect the worst under his reign. The majority of the Saudi people, like other Arabs and people everywhere, yearn for an alternative to their oppressive regime and its outmoded, unresponsive, and dysfunctional institutions. It�s estimated that between 60 and 70 percent of the Saudi population is less than 30 years of age and that over 40 percent of men and women in the 20-24 age group are unemployed. This is a ticking time bomb. Government handouts will not silence these people for long. Even if Nayef is sufficiently ruthless to guarantee his family�s safety, keep its unruly members in line, and maintain stability for a time by sheer force, he may still be the least suitable man to rule Saudi Arabia in a period of escalating demands for change. These demands come from a generation that is disconnected from the world Nayef and his aging brothers were born into and live in still. Nayef will strengthen the Wahhabi religious establishment to intimidate the populace and keep them in check, as he has always done. A more theocratic and dangerous Saudi Arabia is inevitable under Nayef. It will be partly the fruit of the West�s appetite for Saudi money and oil. <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/crown-prince-nayef-next-saudi-king_604268.html">Read Article</a> <h4> <footer> Join us: The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization based in Washington, DC. CDHR provides new and accurate information for the benefit of the public, the business community and policy makers about the current situation in Saudi Arabia. CDHR�s goal is to help bring about a peaceful democratic transition from a single-family autocratic rule to a participatory political system where the rights of all Saudi citizens are protected under the rule of civil laws. The Center could not undertake this important task without the active support of visionary individuals and foundations. CDHR needs the support of people who understand the importance of building a united, prosperous and tolerant society in Saudi Arabia where people are empowered to determine their destiny and the fate of their important, but unstable country. Please visit our website (www.cdhr.info) to lear n about our work and see what you might do to support the many Saudi men and women who risk their livelihood and lives to promote a just political system that rejects all forms of incitement, religious hatred and oppression at home and abroad. Your financial investment in democracy building in Saudi Arabia will benefit the Saudi people, the Middle East, the Muslim world, and the international community. Your <a href="http://www.cdhr.info/"> contribution</a> will make a difference and is greatly appreciated. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have about our mission and what you can do to promote a non-sectarian, accountable and transparent political system in Saudi Arabia where all citizens are treated equally under the rule of civil laws. </footer> <Bottom> Contact us: <h5>Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia 1050 17th Street NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 558-5552, (202) 413-0084 Fax: (202) 536-5210 Email: <a href="mailto:cdhr@cdhr.info">cdhr@cdhr.info</a> Website: <a href="http://www.cdhr.info">www.cdhr.info</a> </h5> </Bottom> You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/"> http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. 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Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:10:00 GMT

<html> <head>  <h2 align=center>Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Washington DC</h2> <h4 align=center>  December 21, 2011 </h4><h4 align=center>  CDHR's Commentary on Current News and Developments Saudi Response to Arab Uprising <h2 align=center></h2> </h4> </head> <body>  <h4>The World needs Islamic guidance� Says the King</h4> CDHR�s Commentary: In a speech read on his behalf at an�influential Muslim scholars' conference in November 2011, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sounded self-assured that �Only Islam�s mercy, light and guidance can provide people with a way forward in life and toward the Hereafter.� The King went on to implore all Muslims to convince non-Muslims to come to and embrace the Muslim faith [i.e., the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabi doctrine] because he inexplicably believes that non-Muslims are in need of�redemption and �Islam, with its comprehensive divine values and a balanced view of life, is alone capable of rescuing humankind from its current behavioral predicament�� The King reminded Muslims that it�s their obligation to convert non-Muslims to Islam, �The Muslim Ummah has a responsibility to call people to Islam through its Da�wa work around the globe.� Perhaps King Abdullah is not cognizant of the fact that he is presiding over one of the most�religiously oppressed and least politically�free countries on earth. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam, home to its two holiest shrines, the Quran is its constitution and the Shariah is its law. In other words, Saudi Arabia is ruled in accordance with Islamic teachings, laws and commands, as interpreted by the Kingdom's Hambali/Wahhabi �religious� men.� King Abdullah�s well-timed and pointed plea to the 1.5 billion Muslims during their holiest occasion, the annual pilgrimage rituals, and its far-reaching implications never made it to Western news outlets, despite the fact that the West is his target. One would think that King Abdullah is asking Muslims to perform the impossible given the current slaughtering of Muslims by other Muslims, but he is not. Millions of people around the world are economically hurting, vulnerable and looking for solutions from any source, specially the divine ones. It is not accidental that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, particularly in Western societies where the overwhelming majority of the populations see Islam as a belief, not as a domineering value system that controls every aspect of its adherents� lives, perceptions and relations with non-Muslims. The majority of Muslims have been brainwashed into believing that the rule of law, freedom of choice and individual liberty are antithesis to divine laws, therefore blasphemous. King Abdullah's call on Muslims to spread Islam and its Shariah law must not be taken lightly. He is the �Custodian� of Islam�s two holiest shrines in Mecca and Madina�to which�most of the world�s 1.5 billion poverty stricken, oppressed and indoctrinated Muslims look for guidance, instructions and money. It would be na�ve and myopic to think that the King�s call would fall on deaf ears as many in the West seem to think. After all, he is the absolute ruler of the most religiously and financially influential country in Arab and Muslim lands and beyond. Prominent Muslim scholars from the prestigious Al-Azhar University and others have described the Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabism, as enemy number one of Islam and Muslims. The former President of Indonesia Abdulrahman Wahid, a world renowned Muslim scholar himself, called on the international community to unite and defeat the Wahhabi doctrine because it poses a�deadly threat to democracies and harmony among people. The West should listen and prevent Islamist ideology from taking root in Western societies, where it will�result in social strife, divisions and conflict as is the case in many Arab and Muslim countries and communities. Some argue that King Abdullah has made changes to rein in extremist activities. King Abdullah has removed a few clerics and some inflammatory phrases from Saudi schools� text books, eliminated some terrorists in Saudi Arabia and convened interfaith dialogues. While these activities are considered reforms by some, especially in the West, others see them as deceptive window dressing to silence foreign and domestic critics of the debauched Saudi state- imposed doctrine, Wahhabism. In reality, under King Abdullah�s leadership, Islamist religious fervor has been heightened as a result of implicit and explicit Saudi accusations that the West is engaged in a war against Islam. He has strengthened the Saudi clerics by making it illegal to criticize them domestically and has united Muslim countries, including Iran and Turkey, through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which consists of 57 states and is headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Spread of Wahhabism throughout the world has been exponentially intensified under King Abdullah more than under any of his predecessors. <a href=" http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111101111499">Read Article</a> <h4>Islamists Have Nothing to Offer, But Religious Totalitarianism </h4> CDHR�s Commentary: While there is legitimate apprehension circulating in the Middle East and around the world regarding Muslim parties wining preliminary elections in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, one has to listen to what the heads of these parties say. They are promising an end to corruption, poverty and oppression. These are the reasons that drove millions of people to the streets�to risk their lives to rid their countries of oppressive despots who have subjugated them for decades. These Muslim parties� fates will be the same as the ones they are replacing if they do not keep their commitments to the new generation of Arabs whose worldly aspirations and needs overcame their crippling fear of their states� cruel police and security apparatus. It seems that many Western analysts and experts are overlooking an extraordinary factor when they write about or discuss the Arab Uprising even when facts on the ground contradict their abysmal forecasts. All an astute observer has to do is to look at the freedom and justice seekers (men and women) facing states� tanks and bullets in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. They are willing to pay the ultimate price to end centuries of religious and political totalitarianism. This new generation of Arabs who are tortured, shot at, killed,�starved and incarcerated will not stop at anything less than liberation from the yoke of oppression�imposed by�the men and institutions that have coercively dominated their lives and livelihoods for decades and centuries. For the first time in their tumultuous history, the Arab people are looking inward instead of blaming outsiders for their systems� gargantuan failures to meet their basic worldly needs. Unlike the Islamists, the new generation of Arabs yearning for freedom�did not have platforms to air their grievances until now. �They discovered that freedom is not free and decided to create platforms from which they can make their voices heard and their needs met. Tahrir (liberation) Squares are the new platforms where they can�force whoever wins elections and rules think twice before going against their demands for better governance that works for them instead of enslaving them. What the Arab masses, rich and poor, are fighting and dying for is above and beyond what the Islamists are capable of offering: liberation from all forms of dictatorship, especially oppressive religious�taboos and the imposition of stifling doctrines. One can learn a lesson from the Iranian masses� support for the Islamists Revolution in 1979, until they discovered the Mullahs for who they really�are: Power seeking hooligans. The Arabs, especially liberals, youth, women and minorities, in Tunis and Egypt are already engaging the Islamists politically and in some cases physically over their political future. At the end of the day, the freedom fighters will win, especially if they receive genuine support from the West which has thus far taken very cautious measures in selective places and continues to support tyrannical systems in places like Saudi Arabia and other�small but wealthy Gulf states which finance Islamists and anti-democracy groups in Arab and Muslim countries and the international community, especially the<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/egypt-election-runoffs_n_1129135.html"> West.</a> <h4> The Tehran Theocratic Mullahs� Loathing for �The Great Satan� and Its Saudi �Puppets� </h4> CDHR Analysis: There is nothing that the theocratic Mullahs in Tehran would rather do than tarnish the absolute Saudi monarchy�s image and render insignificant its leadership among Muslims and within the international community. It is a well-known fact that these last two tyrannical Muslim regimes are competing for Arab and Muslim leadership in the hope of securing global recognition and legitimacy for their draconian rule at home. In addition, the cruel Iranian regime will stop at nothing to drive a bigger wedge between the absolute Saudi monarchs and their most important protecting ally, the US. However, plotting to attack the Saudi embassy in Washington and kill its hundreds of personnel including King Abdullah�s yes-man ambassador will back fire in a way even the vicious Iranian regime is not suicidal enough to undertake. The similarities between the autocratic and theocratic regime in Tehran and their counterparts in Riyadh are well known. They are anti-democracy, anti-women, anti-non-Muslims, anti-human rights and share a common objective of ridding Arab and Muslim countries of Western influence so they can continue to oppress their people in the name of God and Shariah law. Both foster, export and finance extremist and terrorist groups in order to spread their influence and extract concessions from Western governments as the Saudis did with Britain regarding Arms Sales� bribery in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade">2008.</a> Knowing that Tehran�s despots and their counterparts in Riyadh are�brimming with hate for the US and Israel as well as for each other, it should not be surprising, albeit unlikely in this case, that someone in Tehran would attempt to hire assassins to hit a small Saudi target, especially in the West. The theocrats in Tehran are vying for a leading role among Muslims; and bullying their Saudi competitors along with their US ally would enhance the image of the Iranian regime among many Muslims regardless of religious differences. Like the Saudi royals (recall King Abdullah's urging President Obama to "cut the head of the snake�), the tyrannical regime in Tehran wants to drag the US and/or Israel into a prolonged war in an Arab or Muslim country so it can convince the rest of the mostly poverty stricken and marginalized Muslims of the �Crusaders� war� against Islam and Muslims. Even harsh critics of Arab and Muslim ruling hooligans� politics and practices would find the Justice Department�s alleged Iranian escapade to be unconvincing, especially at a time when the Iranian regime knows misbehaving could generate a crippling military response by a combination of regional and international coalitions. The Tehran theocrats are vicious, but not suicidal. <h4> �What Do Saudi Women Want?� </h4> CDHR Analysis: Saudi women want the most basic rights: �recognition as full human beings, full citizenship, financial independence and the right to move freely. With gargantuan respect and admiration for Ms. Eman Al Nafjan�s intelligence, courage and struggle, I beg to differ with some of her insinuations that the majority of Saudi women prefers to live under what amounts to a modern slavery system.� I agree with Ms. Al Nafjan that many women (and men) in the motherland remain nostalgic for their past and fearful of what�s denied to them. I disagree that the majority of the severely disenfranchised population, especially women, �would not appreciate something better than living under institutionalized discriminatory and intimidating policies, harshly enforced by a system whose hegemonic survival depends on dividing, conquering and ensuring the population's dependence on handouts and omnipresent fear�of God, whipping sticks and the sword. Like any people, if Saudi women and men have free cho ices based on facts and knowledge of better alternatives, the overwhelming majority is more likely to denounce every aspect of their rasping culture, distorted religious teachings and suffocating social and political arrangements. The Saudi people can learn, think for themselves and distinguish between the good, the bad and everything in between. They can change and in due time embrace values that are the�antithesis of what they have been programmed into believing are supreme to all other values, especially those of the �infidels," which most educated Saudi men and women strive to attain. This is evidenced by traveling Saudis, most of whom cannot wait to�board a plane and strip off their suffocating and unsightly attire and to slip into the outfits people they have been told are dirty, unethical sinners�and hell-bound� blasphemous unbelievers. I agree with Ms. Al Nafjan and millions of Saudis and other Muslims that religion has been used as �a tool of oppression, discrimination, segregation and intolerance�against those who think out of the box, as well as non-Muslims and Muslim minorities. This is why many Muslims are not only questioning the authenticity of their faith, but severely criticizing it and many are leaving it altogether. The quandary is not that�Saudi women and men cannot labor for, embrace and appreciate independence, self-reliance and liberation from the yoke of political, social, sexual and religious totalitarianism, it�s the system under which they are forced to live and coercively obey. All the people need is freedom of choices to venture into the unknown, explore their untapped potential and put them in good use for themselves and for their influential country. What needs to be done to alter for the people of the motherland, including those who rule, is a re-interpretation of Muslim textbooks, leaving religion to the individual, transforming all institutions to meet people�s needs now and�installing an accountable and transparent mechanism whereby the people are in charge of their country�s safety, prosperity and destiny. This will take time to blossom, but the time to start is now before violence becomes the only hope for people�to realize their dreams and become the authors of their fate. Finally and based on first hand experiences, I found Saudi women to be�the most resilient people I have ever met, worked with, befriended and watched since�I was a child in the oppressed southern region of the vast land of Arabia. Sadly and inexplicably, the theocratic and autocratic iron-fisted ruling men are not taking notice of the people's aspirations and based on their history and state of mind they are not likely going to change until they have no choice. By then it will be too late for everyone as this article <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/what_do_saudi_women_want">concludes.</a> <h4>Women Driving Will End Virginity in Saudi Arabia </h4> CDHR�s Analysis: The most offensive new charade to justify barring women from driving was issued by the religious wing of the Saudi ruling men recently. It stated that, �Within 10 years of the ban being lifted� there would be �no more virgins� in the Islamic kingdom.� �To augment its tradition of denigration of Saudi women, the religious establishment�s report went on to say allowing women to drive will �provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce�. This accusatory and repugnant declaration by the Saudi government�s religious establishment is designed to debase Saudi women, maintain man�s domination over every aspect of their lives and turn people against each other as they do by turning the majority Sunni Muslims against their brothers and sisters religious minorities. All is done because God and Islam demand it according to the Saudi High Religious Council. Prior to and during the early days of the establishment of Islam some 15 centuries ago, women in the vast and inhospitable Arabian deserts were free to travel, work with men in farms, herding and grazing animals, harvesting and selling their goods in communal markets and most of them barely covered most of their bodies. Incomprehensibly, 15 centuries later, Saudi women are not allowed to travel, seek jobs, go to schools, obtain life-saving medication or give birth to babies in hospitals without male (male-guardian) permission. They are prohibited from mingling with men (publicly or in the work place), they cannot choose their spouses, practice law in courts or vote in cosmetic municipal elections. They are the only people on this planet that are barred from driving despite the fact that many Saudi women are doctors, scientists, brain surgeons, professors, businesswomen and pilots. However, there are limits to how much people can endure. � The Saudi women are fighting back in all fronts, especially for their most basic right: �free movement. In recent years, many Saudi women have been challenging the system�s nebulous policies and futile reasoning for denying them the right to drive. Their demands to drive draw domestic and international attention and support, consequently severe reprisal by their insecure government, including imprisonments, intimidations and threats to some of them, their families and their supporters. The regime, through its religious establishment, is resorting to the most abhorrent and insulting reasons to perpetuate its repression of women as this article <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8930168/Allowing-women-drivers-in-Saudi-Arabia-will-be-end-of-virginity.html ">indicates.</a> <h4>Crown Prince Nayef�the Next Saudi King? </h4> CDHR�s Analysis: A shadow has darkened prospects for democratic reform in Saudi Arabia with the announcement that the most envied, loathed, and feared man in the country is now heir to the throne. Unless the present king, the elderly and ailing Abdullah, outlives him, the newly named Crown Prince Nayef � himself in his late 70s � is likely to preside over an even more repressive kingdom than Saudi Arabia already is today. Unpopular domestically, regionally, and globally, Nayef is known for his heavy-handedness, his unequivocal support for the religious establishment, his objection to judicial and political reforms, his opposition to the rights of women and minorities, and his control of the entire Saudi security apparatus. The Libyan people's appreciation for Sarkozy and Cameron should have sent a clear and chilling message to the remaining Arab autocracies like the Saudi royals. Not only should Arab dictators be worried about their people�s hunger for freedom, but the recipients of Arab regimes� largess in the West should rethink their allegiance to an irreversible fading era in the Arab world. Arab regimes� apologists in the West continue to insist that most Arabs and Muslims are content to be semi slaves to their religion, culture and their absolute rulers. Despite all this, and because of the challenges facing the Saudi regime at home and abroad, King Abdullah and some senior members of the ruling family deem Nayef to be the right man to rule Saudi Arabia next. President Obama, too, issued a positively laudatory statement��I congratulate King Abdullah and the Saudi people on the selection of Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz as crown prince. We in the United States know and respect him for his strong commitment to combating terrorism and supporting regional peace and security��even though Prince Nayef is reported to have refused to cooperate with the FBI after the 9/11 attacks on the United States and still insists that those attacks were caused by a Zionist conspiracy. Needless to say, Nayef has never�declared his support for the Arab Peace Initiative with Israel. For the West and other major oil-consuming countries, stability in Saudi Arabia, still the largest oil exporter, supersedes all other considerations, regardless of the price and who must pay. Any major disruption in oil production and shipment from Arabia could create global economic havoc with unmanageable consequences. This situation will continue until a reasonably priced alternative to oil is available. What is being myopically overlooked, however, not out of ignorance but out of disconcerting necessity, is that Nayef�s ascent to the throne could expedite the very instability in Saudi Arabia that so many are hoping to avoid. If he becomes king, Nayef will preside over a fast-changing and restless society that is less fearful of authority than in the past. Nonstop, lively exchanges on social media show that the Saudi people expect the worst under his reign. The majority of the Saudi people, like other Arabs and people everywhere, yearn for an alternative to their oppressive regime and its outmoded, unresponsive, and dysfunctional institutions. It�s estimated that between 60 and 70 percent of the Saudi population is less than 30 years of age and that over 40 percent of men and women in the 20-24 age group are unemployed. This is a ticking time bomb. Government handouts will not silence these people for long. Even if Nayef is sufficiently ruthless to guarantee his family�s safety, keep its unruly members in line, and maintain stability for a time by sheer force, he may still be the least suitable man to rule Saudi Arabia in a period of escalating demands for change. These demands come from a generation that is disconnected from the world Nayef and his aging brothers were born into and live in still. Nayef will strengthen the Wahhabi religious establishment to intimidate the populace and keep them in check, as he has always done. A more theocratic and dangerous Saudi Arabia is inevitable under Nayef. It will be partly the fruit of the West�s appetite for Saudi money and oil. <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/crown-prince-nayef-next-saudi-king_604268.html">Read Article</a> <h4> <footer> Join us: The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization based in Washington, DC. CDHR provides new and accurate information for the benefit of the public, the business community and policy makers about the current situation in Saudi Arabia. CDHR�s goal is to help bring about a peaceful democratic transition from a single-family autocratic rule to a participatory political system where the rights of all Saudi citizens are protected under the rule of civil laws. The Center could not undertake this important task without the active support of visionary individuals and foundations. CDHR needs the support of people who understand the importance of building a united, prosperous and tolerant society in Saudi Arabia where people are empowered to determine their destiny and the fate of their important, but unstable country. Please visit our website (www.cdhr.info) to lear n about our work and see what you might do to support the many Saudi men and women who risk their livelihood and lives to promote a just political system that rejects all forms of incitement, religious hatred and oppression at home and abroad. Your financial investment in democracy building in Saudi Arabia will benefit the Saudi people, the Middle East, the Muslim world, and the international community. Your <a href="http://www.cdhr.info/"> contribution</a> will make a difference and is greatly appreciated. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have about our mission and what you can do to promote a non-sectarian, accountable and transparent political system in Saudi Arabia where all citizens are treated equally under the rule of civil laws. </footer> <Bottom> Contact us: <h5>Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia 1050 17th Street NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 558-5552, (202) 413-0084 Fax: (202) 536-5210 Email: <a href="mailto:cdhr@cdhr.info">cdhr@cdhr.info</a> Website: <a href="http://www.cdhr.info">www.cdhr.info</a> </h5> </Bottom> You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/"> http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. If you're still having trouble, please contact the list owner at: <a href="mailto:newsletter@cdhr.info"> newsletter@cdhr.info </a>

Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:54:00 GMT

Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:46:00 GMT

<html> <head>  <h2 align=center>Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Washington DC</h2> <h4 align=center>  August 25, 2011 </h4><h4 align=center>  Saudi Current News CDHR's Commentary and Analysis <h2 align=center>Change is in the Air</h2> </h4> </head> <body>  <h4>Saudi King Calling on Syrian Dynasty to Reform or Face Extinction </h4> CDHR Comment: After five months of a murderous campaign by the Assad dynasty against peaceful pro democracy protesters, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia issued a stern warning "To our brothers in Syria, Syria of Arabism and Islam: Peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you: The repercussions of events in sister Syria resulted in the loss of large numbers of martyrs, whose blood was shed, and other numbers of wounded and injured. Everyone knows that every sane Muslim and Arab or others are aware that this is not of religion, values, or ethics. Today, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stands before its historical responsibility towards her brothers, demanding the stoppage of the killing machine and bloodshed, use of reason before it is too late, introduction and activation of reforms that are not entwined with promises, but actually achieved so that our brothers the citizens in Syria can feel them in their lives as dignity, glory and pride.� Despite the King�s use of carefully chosen religious vernacular (�martyrs�every sane Muslim and Arab or others are aware that this is not of religion, values, or ethics�), the intent and tone of King Abdullah�s statement are more complex than they might suggest. He is sending messages to different audiences: Reassuring Sunni Muslims (the overwhelming majority of the world�s Muslims are Sunnis, most of whom resent Saudi doctrinal interference in their affairs) that the Saudi rulers are their saviors; weakening Iran�s influence in Syria, and by extension Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon; appeasing his source of legitimacy, the Saudi and other religious extremists; and maintaining the West�s support without which the absolute Saudi ruling dynasty would have been overthrown years ago. As soon as the king�s statement hit the press, thousands of social media users in Saudi Arabia, the Arab World and globally started an intense discussion and exchange of sarcastic comments. Many of the comments ridiculed the Saudi ruler for advocating reforms in Syria while his government rounds up reformers and throws them in prisons for calling for peaceful reforms within Saudi Arabia such as a constitutional monarchy, the rule of law, an independent judicial system, women�s and minority rights, freedom of expression and tolerance of religious differences, just to name a few. Commentators suggested that the absolute Saudi monarch was nudged by the US to lead an Arab condemnation of the Assad dynasty�s brutal campaign against its people. A good number of speculators believed the Saudi rulers waited until they saw who would prevail before they chose sides. Many others believed that the Saudi ruler realized that the Assads� days are numbered and wanted t ake credit for being the straw that broke the camel�s back. The Saudi power wielders are duplicitously clever. Customarily, they support several major combatants in any conflict in Arab and Muslim countries until they figure out who would be their best pick or the least harmful to their interests. Other social media users assumed that it took the Saudis longer time to decide which side to support because of the complexity of the Syrian pro-democracy movement. Syrian society has long been divided along religious, tribal, regional and ethnic lines. However, these groups are now uniting in the pro-democracy movement. The movement includes the majority Sunni Muslims who are Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and others. In addition, 10 to 15% of the Syrian population is Christian many of whom are also part of the pro-democracy movement. Despite the validity of the views expressed above, this observer of Saudi policy and political and strategic maneuvering holds an alternate view. The Saudi decision makers had hoped that Iran and Hezbollah, their major rival for regional political and religious leadership and influence, would send troops to aid their Alawite ally as the Saudis did in Bahrain. Such a move by Iran and Hezbollah would have given the Saudis, the US and the Israelis an excuse to retaliate against Iran and destroy its military infrastructure, especially its nuclear capabilities. To the disappointment of the Saudis, Iran and Hezbollah did not send any overt aid to the Assad regime. Therefore, one can safely assume that the previously discussed factors then came to the fore in triggering the sudden Saudi denunciation of the Assad regime�s brutality against the Syrian people. In addition, the autocratic Saudi rulers are worried about facing the same fate as the Assad regime. They are counting on the religious, gender, ethnic and regional divisions they created and continue to re-enforce in order to control their disenfranchised population. However, having witnessed the unity and cooperation among the more diverse Syrian communities against the Assads� brutal dictatorship, the absolute Saudi rulers realized that the Saudi people, regardless of region, religious orientations and ethnicity will unite against their common oppressor, the Saudi monarchy. Wouldn�t it be better to introduce reforms in Saudi Arabia �willingly� rather than �drift into the depths of chaos and loss?�e. <a href="http://www.spa.gov.sa/English/details.php?id=916491">Read Article</a> <h4> The Saudi Palace �Open Door� Tradition </h4> CDHR Comment: Saudi journalist Athwan Al-Ahmari, an admitted recipient of the Saudi monarchy�s �open door� handouts, wrote an article (http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Articles/Detail.aspx?ArticleId=6760) in which he profusely praised King Abdullah for meeting with him and a few Saudi government students in Washington and treating them like his own children. Based on this meeting and on two other occasions, this journalist, like many domestic and foreign Saudi regime drumbeaters, present a distorted image of the Saudi monarchy�s �open door� tradition. The Saudi �open door� custom is a pre-modern nomadic tradition where tribal chiefs mediate conflicts and feed some of their followers in order to maintain mental and physical control and receive gifts from those who could spare some of their meager possession. The Saudi ruling family has continued and expanded on this paralyzing and addictive dependency on the men in power. The Saudi kings and some members of their family designate certain times and dates when the most marginalized of their disenfranchised subjects can come to the royals� gargantuan Majjalis and Ghoruf Ta�am (waiting and dining rooms) to eat, air their grievances, and plead for justice and handouts. When the royals make their grand entrance, the aggrieved subjects, exclusively male-audience, get up, form long lines, approach their host, and kiss his head, shoulder, hand, and occasionally knees. After this servile ritual is concluded, the distressed men hand him a piece of paper with their grievances. The host king or prince is normally surrounded with body guards, advisors and other onlookers, who take custody of the grievances, study the audience, and expedite the process. Most grievances relate to disputed properties, complaints of wrong judgments by the arbitrary judicial system, and unpaid small loans. However, the attendants are mostly supplicating for handouts. Historically, chiefs, selected through tribal consensus, opened their tents to fellow tribal members to come for coffee, poetry contests, or to settle disputes over land, water wells, and stolen goats. The chiefs received gifts like sheep, horses, camels, milk, butter, dates, and other farm products for their services which included reconciling differences and solving small and large scale problems. The chiefs normally shared their gifts with the givers in a very clever manner. For example, the chiefs would kill a few sheep or a camel and invite the whole community to eat. The hungry guests saw this gesture as a generous offer by the chiefs even though the sheep and camels were previously given to the chiefs by some of the invitees. This voluntary and un-institutionalized tribal process worked well until the establishment of the Saudi State. After the formation of the Saudi State, the king became the chief (Sultan) of all tribal chiefs and by extension their followers. The chiefs� loyalties and responsibilities shifted from an informal local, social, and problem-solving arrangement to a policing system where the chiefs of the tribes became representatives of the central authority of the king and defenders of his interests and the security of his territorial sovereignty, the Saudi state. As time passed, the fabric that held the tribal communities together as a supportive and nurturing unit began to physically disintegrate at the local levels. The chiefs and their followers started to identify with the Saudi monarchs and their offspring and depend upon them for food, security, and problem solving. This process reduced the once proud and ferocious chiefs of Arabian tribes and their followers into helpless, child-like, and dependent subjects and the property of the Al-Saud family. The people of Arabia ar e the only people who are named after the family that tyrannically rules them. They are called �Saudis.� The monarchs and their sons continued the tradition of open door rituals with an entirely different meaning and duplicitous agenda. They eventually opened their palatial and intimidating palaces to all the subjects of their kingdom some of whom would travel for days to seek the monarchs� wisdom and handouts. The Saudi kings and many of their sons established the system of hand, shoulder, head, and knee kissing by their subdued subjects to ensure their total submission to him and his family. The king continued to moderate conflicts and maintained the power to enforce the royals� supremacy and decisions regardless of whether the conflicting parties were satisfied with the result or not. In summary, the highly praised and advertised open door tradition under the Saudi royals� system is designed to ensure their subjects� submission to the ruling monarchs and to make sure that the public never forgets who the masters and the servants are. Furthermore, the royals seek to demonstrate through this practice that they are the only ones who can provide justice even though their institutions are responsible for most of their subjects� complaints and long-lasting denigration. <h4> Saudis Find Solace in Seductive Soap Operas Not in Mosques </h4> CDHR Analysis: Despite an intense campaign by Saudi authorities to re-enforce adherence to Islamic values, more Saudis are watching soap operas and other worldly dramas than going to mosque during Muslims most holy month of Ramadan (http://asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=7&id=26276). Spear-headed by King Abdullah and his top religious and government agents, the autocratic and theocratic Saudi regime is intensifying its customary efforts to convince the increasingly unreceptive Saudi population to follow the state�s imposed religious teaching and practice of total submission to the ruling family. In light of the Arab Uprising, many Saudis are aspiring to a participatory political structure which their rulers argue is an unsuitable Western concept, therefore antithetical to Muslim belief. The cornerstone of this new and highly politicized anti-democracy campaign is King Abdullah�s gargantuan project (the largest to date) to enlarge Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca at a cost of 80 billion Saudi Riyals or $21billion (http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article491057.ece). The King�s top religious authority, Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh, has declared peaceful protest by democratic reformers as un-Islamic, divisive, and a threat to the state, or in this case, the theocratic and autocratic ruling dynasties (http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2011/03/07/saudi-clerics-condemn-protests-as-un-islamic/). Another top religious cleric, Sheik Saleh Al-Fawzan, is inciting religious condemnation of Saudi men and women who are opposed to child marriages. He ��issued a religious ruling to allow fathers to arrange marriages for their daughters �even if they are in the cradle�. (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/cleric-fights-ban-on-child-marriage/story-e6frf7lf-1226104619386). Even the former intelligence chief and ambassador to the US and UK, Turki Al-Faisal (King�s nephew), has been recruited to denounce those who do not �pay allegiance� to his family as non-Muslims (http://aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&issueno=11910&article=630097&feature ). The intense, expensive and highly politicized religious fervor rehearsed and blasted through the Saudi state controlled media by the highest authorities in the land has been orchestrated in response to ominous external and internal developments. Externally, the Saudis are surrounded by contagious public revolutions against tyrannical and corrupt Arab regimes. Since the Saudi people suffer from the same social symptoms that sparked the unprecedented Arab Uprising, many observers are predicting that Saudi Arabia is ripe for political turmoil regardless of the Saudi royals� massive monetary handouts and harsh reprisals against democratic reformers. However, the deadly threat to the absolute ruling Saudi dynasty is domestic. Internally, a fast growing number of Saudis, especially among the social media generation, are more interested in seeking tangible, worldly rewards rather than going to mosque and being told how to live their lives. A recent (link above) report indicates that more Saudis are watching soap operas and other non-religious programs at times when they are supposed to be praying and/or fasting, especially during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In other words, Saudis are spending their time in front of their TV sets, Satellite channels, or computers tweeting each other and the rest of the world about gender mingling, women�s right to drive, freedom of expression, corruption, and job opportunities, to name a few. Until the advent of modern technology, specifically social media and satellite channels, many of the Saudi people had been isolated from each other and from the rest of the world. This was due to the Saudi regime�s heavy-handed censorship of information and destructive use of religion to turn their subjects against each other, non-Muslims, Muslim minorities (Shi�a, Sufis, Baha�is and Ahmadis) and other Sunni Muslims who do not adhere to the austere Saudi brand of Islam, Wahhabi doctrine. The tyrannous Saudi elites do not seem to understand that the world is not flat anymore and their people, especially the Facebook generation, are affected by global progress and events. In reality, an unprecedented number of Saudi citizens are realizing through that Islam has been used as a tool of oppression, denial, deprivation, and exploitation by their absolute ruling dynasty. <h4>External Empowerment of Saudi Consultative Council (Shura) </h4> CDHR Comment: A version of an ostensibly anti-terror law was leaked to Amnesty International (AI) on July 22, 2011 (http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/proposed-saudi-arabian-anti-terror-law-would-strangle-peaceful-protest-2011-07-22) and was found to include sections that were designed to incriminate pro-democracy and human rights advocates and critics of the Saudi ruling family, as opposed to punishing hard-core terrorists. After a copy of the top-secret law was released by AI, the Saudi autocratic authorities were infuriated, blocked AI�s website, and denied the human rights group�s assertions that the law could be used to terrorize innocent people. As it were, AI was correct in accusing the Saudi authorities, specifically the Ministry of Interior, of duplicitous intent. After the law was exposed and highly contested by Saudi human rights advocates and social media users, the Saudi government decided to send the law to the 150 appointed but powerless male members of the Consultative Council for further review. According to the attached article, the Council decided that the law could be used to punish anyone, especially those who call for reforms and increased protection from the Saudi government�s arbitrary abuses as they are enshrined in its Shariah law-based judicial system. The moral of this comment is that, if it were not for AI�s exposure of the supposedly anti-terror law, the Consultative Council would never have seen it nor would its input have been sought by the Saudi power wielders. The question that the 150 appointed members of the Council should be asking themselves is: �Do we have real power to protect the people and their interests or are we being used by the Saudi theocratic and autocratic establishment to deceive the disenfranchised subjects and justify the government�s draconian policies against its voiceless citizens. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-says-draft-anti-terrorism-law-being-amended-151808565.html">Read Article</a> <h4> Maids Are Reacting With Vengeance </h4> CDHR Comment: As documented by human rights groups in and out of Saudi Arabia, the estimated 10 million Asian and other non-Western migrant workers (some of whom are house maids or �modern slaves�) are frequently maltreated by their Saudi employers. These mostly overworked and underpaid laborers live in slum-like camps, often do not receive their salaries on time and cannot leave the country due to confiscation of their official documents by their employers (sponsors) upon their arrival in the country. The migrant workers are literally held hostage and have no recourse to seek justice other than the mercy of their abusive employers, or masters as employers are addressed by maids. Tragically, the maids and other Asian laborers receive no help from the embassies of their countries of origin in Saudi Arabia. This is due to the fact that the governments and businessesmen of their homeland s are recipients of Saudi foreign aid and profitable business contracts. Mistreated by their Saudi employers, denied recourse to seek justice when abused, and ignored by the governments of their countries of origin, some maids are reacting to their abuses with vengeance as evidenced by the murder of an employer and poisoning of another�s children*. The two examples cited on the attached articles are not the only reported cases, but the case of the beheaded 54-year old Indonesian maid, Ruyati Binti Sapubi**, is not only highlighting the abuses of the neglected migrant workers, but also impacting the most populated and tolerant Muslim country, Indonesia, and the least tolerant and most autocratic Muslim government, the Saudi ruling family. The Indonesian government and people were united in condemning the Saudi government�s secret beheading of Ruyati Binti Sapubi. The president of Indonesia wrote an angry letter to the Saudi king and relatives of maids in Saudi Arabia took to the street in front of the Saudi embassy carrying signs saying �Saudi Arabia enemy of humanity.� <a href="http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article487193.ece">Read Article</a> <h4>The Implications of Norway Massacre for Muslims in Europe, Australia and the US </h4> CDHR's Analysis: The massacre of innocent children and adults by Norwegian self-described nationalist, Anders Breivik, on July 22, 2011 rocked the national psyche of Norway, one of the world�s most tolerant and peaceful nations. The massacre caused horror and excruciating pain that parents and loved ones of the victims will endure for the rest of their lives. Furthermore, the tragedy created a new environment of fear, mistrust and suspicion among the indigenous Norwegians who began to demand tougher laws for terrorists. The recent tragic Norwegian experience also sent a clear signal to those who tolerate infusion of Islam, as an identity and value system, into Western secular societies. However, no group should be more concerned about the reasons behind the carnage in Norway than Muslims in Western societies and their known financiers in Arab countries, especially in Saudi Arabia and other oil rich Arab countries. Anders Breivik and his Justicular Knights group are described as right wing nationalists, but to write them off as lunatics and unrepresentative of many people in Western societies is not only erroneous, but dangerous. They represent the sentiments, feelings and fears of millions of Europeans, Americans, Australians, and Canadians toward Islam as an identity and a value system. Breivik�s well-written and articulately detailed 1,500 page manifesto made it clear that his �mission� was to prevent the introduction of Muslim ethos to his country and the rest of Europe�a feeling shared by millions of Westerners, including secular people from Arab and Muslim countries, especially women. Europeans see the introduction of the unsightly and disfiguring Barqa and Abayah, high-rising minarets emitting alien calls for prayer through deafening sound systems, and lines of Muslims rubbing their faces on the dirt while praying in the streets in Paris as unwelcome intrusions to their centuries�-old, established democratic way of life. They see Muslim immigrants� condemnation of Western lifestyles and dress codes, gender mingling and interacting, consumption of alcohol and pork, and the practice of sex before marriage as an unacceptable infringement on their freedom of choice and individual liberty to be the authors of their lives, livelihood, and destiny. One hardly hears any cultural or religious conflicts between Westerners and non-Muslim immigrants such as Buddhists, Jews, Sikhs and Hindus who have largely been able to preserve their traditions, but also assimilate within the established order of their new adopted Western countries. Ironically, most Arab and Muslim immigrants, rich and poor, leave their homelands because of social, political and religious totalitarianism as well as lack of economic and other opportunities unavailable to them in their tyrannically ruled societies. One of many overriding fears of Westerners is the introduction of the Shariah Law and Shariah Compliance as well as Islamic Banking and judicial system which they see as threats to their free market system, non-sectarian democratic constitutions and bill of rights which protect citizens from government abuses and impositions of the wishes of a few autocratic and theocratic ruling oligarchies�as is the case in all Arab and mos t Muslim countries. Westerners compare their advanced social, political, economic, religious and scientific systems to those of Arabs and Muslims. Of all immigrants to the West, most Muslims seem to misunderstand the difference between preserving one�s personal attachment to old traditions and the use of those traditions to set them apart from the cultures, traditions, lifestyle and values of their adopted countries. Unlike most Muslims, Westerners, Christians and Jews, believe in religious freedom regardless of beliefs and religious orientations. Therefore, it is not Islam as a personal belief, but rather Islam as a value system, which Westerners oppose. In view of the recent carnage in Norway and the reasons cited by its perpetrator, Muslim immigrants and citizens in countries where the majority of the population believes and lives differently than Muslims should wake up and take a solemn inventory of how the indigenous citizens view them, their cultural habits, and their faith as an identity and value system. Separation between religion and state as well as freedom of religious expression are twin tenets enshrined in non-sectarian documents and protected by the codified rule of law in Western societies. Under the rule of law, individuals� rights to choose the belief, lifestyle, and affiliations which they desire are guaranteed as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others and are in accordance with the established laws. Sadly, none of these empowering values and freedoms of choice exist in Muslim and Arab countries. Not only do Muslim immigrants have difficulties embracing, paying allegiance to and abiding by non-religious based laws, but they then pass their value system to their children and grandchildren who were born in Western countries. This is partially the reason why American-born Muslims descendants join Muslim terror groups as in Somalia and Pakistan, for example. Finally, had the recent carnage in Norway been committed by Muslims, especially in countries like in the US, Canada, England, Germany, France or Australia, severe reprisals against Muslims could have ensued. Given many Westerners� heightened rejection of Islam as a value system and identity (not as a belief), it is only a matter of time before violent confrontation between citizens of Muslims extraction and native Westerners becomes a reality. Samuel Huntington saw it coming in his Clashes of Civilizations� narratives 16 years ago. <h4> Join us: <spanstyle="color:black; font-weight:normal">The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization based in Washington, DC. CDHR provides new and accurate information for the benefit of the public, the business community and policy makers about the current situation in Saudi Arabia. CDHR�s goal is to help bring about a peaceful democratic transition from a single-family autocratic rule to a participatory political system where the rights of all Saudi citizens are protected under the rule of civil laws. The Center could not undertake this important task without the active support of visionary individuals and foundations. CDHR needs the support of people who understand the importance of building a united, prosperous and tolerant society in Saudi Arabia where people are empowered to determine their destiny and the fate of their important, but unstable country. Please visit our website (www.cdhr.info) to lear n about our work and see what you might do to support the many Saudi men and women who risk their livelihood and lives to promote a just political system that rejects all forms of incitement, religious hatred and oppression at home and abroad. Your financial investment in democracy building in Saudi Arabia will benefit the Saudi people, the Middle East, the Muslim world, and the international community. Your <a href="http://www.cdhr.info/"> contribution</a> will make a difference and is greatly appreciated. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have about our mission and what you can do to promote a non-sectarian, accountable and transparent political system in Saudi Arabia where all citizens are treated equally under the rule of civil laws. </footer> <Bottom> Contact us: <h5>Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia 1050 17th Street NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 558-5552, (202) 413-0084 Fax: (202) 536-5210 Email: <a href="mailto:cdhr@cdhr.info">cdhr@cdhr.info</a> Website: <a href="http://www.cdhr.info">www.cdhr.info</a> </h5> </Bottom> You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/"> http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. 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Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:37:00 GMT

Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Wed, 18 May 2011 17:51:00 GMT

Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia Newsletter Message

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:42:00 GMT

Saudi News & Analysis

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:46:00 GMT

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> <html> <head>  <h2 align=center>Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Washington DC</h2> <h4 align=center>  January 13, 2011 </h4><h4 align=center>  Saudi News & Analysis Commentary by Dr. Ali Alyami <h2 align=center>Reforms a Myth</h2> </h4> </head> <body>  <h4> Arbitrary Abduction Remains Intact </h4> Director�s Comment: Despite royal decrees, domestic and foreign praise for King Abdullah�s judicial and other reforms, the Saudi political and judicial (religious court) system remain allusive at best. The abduction of Law Professor Mohammed Abdullah Al-Abdulkarim by agents of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif on December 5, 2010 is only one of many arbitrary arrests, incarcerations and abuses of innocent people for simple expressions of thought. Professor Al- Abdulkarim is a peaceful reform minded Saudi citizen who wrote a thoughtful article and posted it on his facebook site explaining the negative impact on Saudi citizens of royal palace fights over the throne, policy and bigger pieces of power and wealth. In democratic and advanced societies, Dr. Mohammed Abdullah Al-Abdulkarim would have been invited to talk shows to elaborate on his analysis and be challenged if he erred in presenting the truth. The same thing would have been applied to other Saudi reformers like Mr. Dham Al- Sammari, Shaikh Al-Reshudi and many others who languish in Saudi prisons for expressing their views on social, political and religious issues that are plaguing their fragmented society. The Saudi people could have benefited from these reformers� public debates; instead they are languishing in Saudi dungeons without charges or open trials. Saudi Arabia is faced with unprecedented internal and external mortal threats and unless inclusive reforms, especially freedom of expression and self-critique, are initiated, institutionalized and implemented transparently, the country will keep sliding toward religious and political totalitarianism, anarchy and domestic strife. <a href="http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=42895">Read Article</a> <h4>Ministry of Education or an Agent of Subjugation?</h4> Director�s Comment: �The Saudi Ministry of Education� is joining the on-going social war against Saudi women. Saudi women are the only people on this planet who are officially prevented from practicing sports in their segregated schools publicly and when they are discovered organizing sports teams privately, they become targets of investigations and interrogations and risk subjugation by the Ministry of Education which should be encouraging them to develop their mental and physical potentials and skills. This is done under the watch of King Abdullah who is dubbed as a savior. The Saudi Ministry of Education discovered that an all-girls school in Jeddah organized women�s sport teams in Dec. 2010 to compete with each other; in response, the Ministry launched an investigation to conduct what amounts to intimidation and punishment for conducting �illegal activities� according to the director of the �Girls Education Department in Jeddah�, Ahmed al-Zahrani (male); "We don't have any regulations that say that it's okay for girl schools to hold sports classes or training�This tournament was held by these schools, something that has now led us to know about their illegal activities." The question is what harm would playing sports in segregated schools do to Saudi society? Camaraderie and a healthier population in a society that is known for suffering from obesity? The problem is that the system is weak and paranoid to the point where it considers any public gathering (except in controlled environments and places of religious indoctrination such as mosques) and exchanges of ideas among men and women as a threat to its survival and control over all aspects of people�s lives and movements including sweating on sizzling basketball courts during Jeddah�s suffocating summer days. It�s no secret that Saudi Arabia, under the absolute rule of a primitive political and religious system, is the only country on earth where the overwhelming majority of women are denied their basic right to decide the kind of life they want to live. They are the only women on earth who are condemned, by their government, to grinding immobility and total financial dependence on men who in many cases are less educated, competent and visionary than the women whose lives and livelihoods they control. Saudi women are the only people anywhere who are officially prevented from driving. They have to beg men (their male guardian) for written approval to seek work, to travel, to go to school, to deliver their babies in hospitals and to obtain life-saving medication or treatment. The genders and their educational institutions, eateries, place of work and even entrances to banks are officially segregated and institutionalized in every aspect of Saudi society. This apartheid system is enforced by the Saudi government�s violent religious police, Matawa�in or �domesticators�. Those who dare challenge such arbitrary, destructive and Machiavellian policies can incur heavy punishment, including public humiliation, imprisonment and flogging in public squares. This is happening at a time when many Saudis are engaged in intense discussions to determine whether women were created with human rights on this planet or only whether such rights only exist in the imagination of hallucinators, like this writer. That�s being said, no one can compete with many Western apologists, intellectuals, government officials and recipients of Saudi larges who are all over themselves glorifying Saudi King Abdullah as the reformer and liberator of the 21st century. <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-21/world/saudi.arabia.sports.probe_1_sports-programs-maeena-high-schools?_s=PM:WORLD">Read Article</a> <h4>Nothing Short of Total Submission </h4> Director�s Comment: As has been documented repeatedly, Saudi women face more economic, social, political, religious and judicial impediments because of their gender than most women in Muslim and Arab societies let alone in advanced democratic and egalitarian societies. Regardless of root causes of Saudi women�s oppression, there is nowhere for them to seek justice and ensure their place in society as full citizens or even as thinking human beings in some cases under the autocratic and theocratic Saudi systems. Despite intense debate about women�s rights, the royal appointment of one woman to a deputy ministerial position and a the election of a few women in internal elections in the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce, Saudi women had more rights to travel, work and participate in feeding their children sixty years ago than they do today under King Abdullah�s rule. As the attached article shows, the Saudi system is designed to treat women as men�s possessions. This destructive treatment of Saudi women has negative implications for Muslim women and for the international community. This is due to the fact that Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to its holy shrines toward which most Muslims face and pray five times a day. Excluding Saudi women from full participation in their society and decision-making processes, especially in matters related to their children�s education, empowers religious extremists who are in charge of the Saudi religious and educational institutions. The world can benefit from empowering Saudi women. <a href="http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article210449.ece">Read Article</a> <h4>Secretary Hillary Clinton on Empowerment of Women </h4> Director�s Comment: In a recent speech in Washington, DC, Secretary Clinton declared that "Women's equality is not just a moral issue, it's not just a humanitarian issue, it is not just a fairness issue. It is a security issue, it is a prosperity issue, and it is a peace issue. Therefore when I talk about why we need to integrate women's issues into discussions at the highest levels everywhere in the world, I'm not doing it just because I have a personal commitment or because President Obama cares about it. I'm doing it because it's in the vital interests of the United States of America." We applaud Secretary Clinton�s powerful statement and wish her strength to do what she said not only in luxurious settings and gold plated palaces with ruling elitists, but in public hall meetings in places like Saudi Arabia where empowering women will undermine religious extremism and its byproduct, terrorism as she correctly stated in the leaked WikiLeaks�s cables. �It has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority�donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.� <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/12/clinton.empower.girls/index.html?hpt=C2">Read Article</a> <h4>Silencing Voices of Reason and Liberty Seekers</h4> Director�s Comment: It�s not enough that Saudi officials and some intellectuals want to silence Saudi democratic reformers, liberty seekers and human rights advocates like Al-Dumani, Al- Hamed, Al-Faleh, Al-Shamarri, Al-Huwaider, Law Professor Al-Abdulkarim, Shaikh Al- Reshudi, blogger Al-Farahan and many others. They want to silence freely elected officials such as British Parliamentarian Sarah Wellston from expressing her views regarding oppression of Saudi women by the system her country helped create and has supported since its creation in 1932. Sarah Wellston was elected to represent her community residents� needs, views and concerns about domestic, national and international issues and values their country and government are involved in. Her job is to expose her government�s shortcomings on behalf of the people who elected her, to serve them as opposed to having them serve her. She can speak, write, criticize and never worry about being abducted in the middle of the night by secret police as is the case for many Saudi promoters of a better accountable system. Wajeha Al-Huwaider, the unnamed target of the litany of accusations in the attached article is a Saudi citizen who advocates equal rights and liberty for millions of marginalized Saudi women. Despite what the attached article implies Al-Huwaider does not hate her country or its ruling autocratic and theocratic men whose polices and institutions deny her and millions of Saudi women, and men, their basic human rights. Emaymeh Ahmed Al-Jalahmah, the skillful writer of the attack on Sarah Wellston and Wajeha Al-Huwaider could serve her country best by writing about the root causes of the multitude of political, social, economic and religious ills and injustices that plague Saudi Arabia and jeopardize its people's future, lives and livelihood. <a href="http://www.alwatan.com.sa/Articles/Detail.aspx?ArticleID=3527">Read Article (in Arabic) </a> <h4>Killing and Uprooting Christians in Arab and Muslim Countries </h4> Director�s Comment: While the murdering and uprooting of law abiding, tolerant and industrious Christians and those who promote religious freedom, respect for the sanctity of life and freedom of choice in Arab and Muslim countries are blamed on a few extremists, the facts on the ground tell different stories. The increasingly frequent murderous rampages in recent months against Christians in Iraq, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan and Iran among others left scores of worshippers dead, wounded and terrorized. Imagine if Muslims are viciously attacked, killed and maimed while worshipping in London, Paris, San Francisco or Stockholm. Millions of Arabs and Muslims would be demonstrating in the streets, burning Bibles and flags and boycotting products of countries where crimes are committed; death fatawi would be issued. Arab and Muslim governments and their controlled media would be encouraging their oppressed populations to fight the non-believers. Most Muslims and their apologists in the West blame murdering and uprooting of Christians from their homeland on �deviants�; however the root causes of atrocious attacks on innocent worshippers can be found in Muslim text books, heard in mosques and taught in schools. These are facts that cannot be denied. The Quran, Shariah and Hadith are translated into dozens of languages that anyone can read. Sermons by Muslim preachers quoting Muslim religious texts to incite violence against non-Muslims, Muslim minorities and Muslims who convert to other religions are continuously broadcast over modern visual and written technologies such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The murders of Christians in Arab and Muslim countries are not carried out by a few deranged individuals as Muslim regimes and their institutions want us to believe. Rejections of non- Muslims and their beliefs are institutionalized in many Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, the birth place of Islam and home to its shrines and headquarters of The Organization of Islamic Congress which gives marching orders to its member states as in the case of the Danish cartoon depicting Mohammed in an unfavorable light. <a href="http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/murder-is-not-an-islamic-option-1.742996">Read Article </a> <footer> Join us: The Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization based in Washington, DC. CDHR provides new and accurate information for the benefit of the public, the business community and policy makers about the current situation in Saudi Arabia. CDHR�s goal is to help bring about a peaceful democratic transition from a single-family autocratic rule to a participatory political system where the rights of all Saudi citizens are protected under the rule of civil laws. The Center could not undertake this important task without the active support of visionary individuals and foundations. CDHR needs the support of people who understand the importance of building a united, prosperous and tolerant society in Saudi Arabia where people are empowered to determine their destiny and the fate of their important, but unstable country. Please visit our website (www.cdhr.info) to learn about our work and see what you might do to support the many Saudi men and women who risk their livelihood and lives to promote a just political system that rejects all forms of incitement, religious hatred and oppression at home and abroad. Your financial investment in democracy building in Saudi Arabia will benefit the Saudi people, the Middle East, the Muslim world, and the international community. Your <a href="http://www.cdhr.info/"> contribution</a> will make a difference and is greatly appreciated. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have about our mission and what you can do to promote a non-sectarian, accountable and transparent political system in Saudi Arabia where all citizens are treated equally under the rule of civil laws. </footer> <Bottom> Contact us: <h5>Center for Democracy & Human Rights in Saudi Arabia 1050 17th Street NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 558-5552, (202) 413-0084 Fax: (202) 536-5210 Email: <a href="mailto:cdhr@cdhr.info">cdhr@cdhr.info</a> Website: <a href="http://www.cdhr.info">www.cdhr.info</a> </h5> </Bottom> </html> You may automatically unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following URL: <a href="http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/"> http://cdhr.info/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/u/cdhrmailer/ </a> If the above URL is inoperable, make sure that you have copied the entire address. Some mail readers will wrap a long URL and thus break this automatic unsubscribe mechanism. 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