Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, Washington DC

December 5, 2012

Commentaries and Analyses

Interfaith Center, State Within a State, Women, Massive Arms Deals and Blasphemous Law

 

Saudi Interfaith Dialogue: Genuine or Duplicitous Maneuver?                                                                          

CDHR’s Commentary: During the opening of the Saudi-financed King Abdullah International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Vienna on November 26, Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, the Saudi head of the Presidency of the Two Holy Mosques, is reported to have said that the Center “…would promote human values, tolerance and peaceful coexistence among people of different religious faiths and cultures.”

His misleading speech was amplified by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal who said that “the sectarian differences are to be elements for understanding and not elements for collision.” These two men are not known for spiritual reconciliation within their own religiously divided country. In fact, neither of them has ever condemned discrimination against their own religious minorities nor have they deplored their country’s intolerance toward non-Muslims in or out of Saudi Arabia.

 

For those unacquainted with Saudi Arabia, its absolute monarchy, its oppressed population (especially women and minorities), and the state’s lethal doctrine which advocates hate and intolerance of other beliefs, the two Saudi officials’ words in Vienna may sound meritorious and honorable. However, the reality on the ground in Saudi Arabia contradicts the Saudi officials’ statements during international interfaith gatherings.

 

According to scholars at Al-Azhar University in Egypt – the oldest and most prestigious Islamic institution – Saudi doctrine and its promulgators are dangerous to Muslims and non-Muslims alike and “must be fought by all lawful means available.” Dr. Abdulrahman Wahid, the former president of the most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, said that “Muslims and non-Muslims must unite to defeat the Wahhabi ideology.”

 

It has been abundantly documented that Saudi Arabia ranks at the top of any list of religious intolerance. Nothing can be more intolerant of other faiths than rejecting their validity and advocating the destruction of their religious sanctuaries in all of the vast land of the Arabian Peninsula, as called for by the Saudi Mufti, the highest religious authority and trusted friend of King Abdullah after whom the Vienna-based and Saudi financed Center is named.

 

Having been misled by overt Saudi assurances on many previous occasions, the representatives of Judaism and Christianity, the other two major faiths the Center is ostensibly designed to engage, must ask why they cannot practice their beliefs in Saudi Arabia. They must also ask why neither Judaism nor Christianity is taught in Saudi schools as legitimate beliefs, as Islam is treated in the West and in Israel.

 

How can there be “peaceful coexistence” and how can sectarian differences “be elements for understanding and not elements for collision” if the Saudi state considers Christianity and Judaism incomplete and unfulfilling? Why are there no study centers for Judaism and Christianity in Saudi universities so the Saudi people and other Muslims can learn about these beliefs, their histories, philosophies and tremendous contributions to past and present civilizations?

 

While King Abdullah, Dr. Al-Sudais and Saud Al-Faisal go around the world to promote religious understanding through dialogue, at home they perpetuate endemic discrimination against their own religious minorities. Are Saudi officials and their champions in the West promoting genuine interfaith dialogue or are they primarily interested in spreading their lethal ideology which feeds extremism and terrorism?

 

Is the West succumbing to Saudi demands to accommodate their intolerant brand of Islam and to pass international laws to criminalize criticism of Islam because of Saudi economic and religious influence or is it due to the Saudi threat of terrorism, as was applied against Great Britain during the BAE arms deal corruption inquiry? Did the Saudis apply similar threats to the US Department of Justice, which also caved in to Saudi demands not to pursue legal action against members of the Saudi royal family for their involvement in financing the 9/11 terrorists? Given this evidence, how can international religious dialogue eliminate the threat of terrorism posed by the Saudi/Wahhabi ideology?

 

The Saudi regime’s call for religious dialogue among the adherents of the major faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is deceitful at best. On the one hand, the Saudi establishment organizes interfaith conferences and finances religious centers in Europe and in the United States where religious freedom for all people is guaranteed by national and international constitutions and international declarations on human rights. On the other, the Saudis are openly exporting and financing anti-Jewish and anti-Christian hate literature as well as financing Sunni terrorists worldwide. In addition, the Saudis finance extremist Muslims, namely the Salafis, who are currently waging a war against pro-democracy and anti-religious bigotry movements throughout the Arab world.

 

Worse yet, Saudi public schools and mosques promote intolerance of non-Muslim beliefs because they consider them irrelevant. The question that must be asked is how calls for harmony between Muslims and non-Muslims can be taken seriously when they are championed by a regime that fosters terrorism and whose highest religious authority demands the destruction of non-Muslim houses of worship and considers religions of other faiths to be of the gutters?

 

Given these facts, what message do the Saudi authorities send to the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world:  a message of “peaceful coexistence” or preparation for “a clash of civilizations?”

 

Saudi King: The UN Must Draft Blasphemy Law

 

CDHR's Commentary: Speaking from his palatial royal palace in Mecca, the Saudi King Abdullah called on the United Nations to draft legislation that would make it illegal for any individual, group or country to insult “divine religions and prophets”. King Abdullah also stated that it “is obligatory upon each Muslim to defend our religion and all the prophets”. The timing of King Abdullah's call on the United Nations to limit individual freedom of expression under the pretext of blasphemy legislation coincided with the celebration of Eid Al-Adha, one of Islam's holiest occasions.

 

King Abdullah was addressing some three million Muslims who were in Mecca to perform the Hajj (pilgrimage) rituals, which every able Muslim must perform once in his/her lifetime. On the face of it, creating legislation to protect religious sensitivities seems harmless until one considers the full ramifications of the Saudi King's call to ban criticism of religions, specifically Islam. The intent of King’s global blasphemy initiatives is to criminalize any criticism of religion, even in democratic societies where freedom of expression is guaranteed and protected as an inalienable and natural right of every citizen. Blasphemy legislation will only serve to constrict universal human rights and enable tyrants to silence their critics at home and abroad.

 

In Saudi Arabia, criticism of Islam, the Saudi ruling family and religious clerics is prohibited, and non-compliance with this prohibition can result in severe punishment as exemplified by the case of Mr. Hamza Kashgari. Hamza Kashgari is a 23-year-old columnist and was an outspoken supporter of the Arab Spring and for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia long before his arrest by the Saudi authorities for tweeting an imaginary conversation between himself and the Prophet Muhammad. Currently Hamza Kashgari languishes in a Saudi prison and faces the prospect of the death penalty, the punishment for blasphemy in Saudi Arabia.

 

The plight of Hamza Kashgari, and that of many like him, shows the danger of the blasphemy legislation that King Abdullah and the 57 members of the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation are advocating. In any democratic country, Kashgari's remarks or any similar action by others on Twitter or in public would have gone largely unnoticed. In the United States of America and in other true democratic societies, inflammatory and vitriolic speeches are protected under the rule of law, as enshrined in the U.S. First Amendment.

 

If the United Nations adopts blasphemy regulation, freedom of expression would be prohibited and dictatorial regimes like the Saudi monarchy will continue to have free hand in accusing individuals of blasphemous acts under the pretext of defending religion; when in fact their objective is to silence critics by incarcerating and in some cases executing them. This dangerous proposal for blasphemy legislation must be rejected by Muslims who are struggling for emancipation from the yoke of religious totalitarianism and by the wider international community, especially Western democracies that are the real target of the blasphemous law the Saudis and other Muslim regimes are promoting.

 

 Saudi Interior Ministry: “A State within a State”

CDHR’s Commentary: The appointment of Prince Mohammed Ibn Naif in early November 2012 as head of the most powerful and feared Saudi institution, the notorious Ministry of Interior, has greater significance than King Abdullah’s explanation that he was simply relieving Prince Ahmed from his position, as per his request. Personally, King Abdullah has been waiting for the day when he could bring the Ministries of Defense and Interior under his control since he took over the day-to-day business of running the country in 1996.

The King had never been a favorite of the late Interior and Defense Ministers, Princes Naif and Sultan, whom he had to struggle with since he was appointed Crown Prince in 1982. Their deaths in 2012 and 2011 respectively presented the King with an opportunity even he never thought would occur, given the fact that he is older than both of them and has not been in good health for a long time.

Prince Ahmed, whom Prince Mohammed recently replaced, is one of the surviving politically active brothers of the powerful “Sudairi Seven” (seven brothers from the first Saudi king’s favorite wife), which includes Princes Sultan and Naif. These Sudairi Seven have been accused of “monopolizing power and blocking reform,” including King Abdullah’s cosmetic initiatives. It has been reported that when Abdullah was Crown Prince, he had to seek the approval of Naif regarding any security concerns. A former official admitted that the Ministry of Interior had become “a state within a state.”

Like his brothers, the recently deposed Prince Ahmed is said to insist on continuing his predecessor’s policies, which King Abdullah and other members in the royal family have been waiting to restructure to ensure that the ministry will focus on security and submit to the King. Saudi analysts who are familiar with Prince Mohammed say that he supports King Abdullah’s measured reform initiatives while Ahmed does not.

Additionally, Western powers prefer to see Prince Mohammed in charge of the Interior Ministry because he is perceived to be progressive, educated in the West, and a supporter of the King’s reforms. More importantly, Prince Mohammed, unlike his father, is said to cooperate with Western intelligence agencies in pursuing terrorists both inside and outside of the Kingdom.

Under its former heavy-handed and insubordinate Minister, Naif, the Saudi Ministry of Interior oversaw and controlled all aspects of the state’s internal security apparatus, including layers of civil defense agencies, land and sea borders, airports, drug trafficking control, all domestic intelligence and informant agencies, religious police, regular police, customs, prisons and passport agencies. The Ministry also exerted substantial influence on the sectarian Saudi judicial system and the religious establishment.

The Ministry is reported to employ about 100 thousand people, a figure which was documented prior to King Abdullah’s decision in March 2011 to authorize 60 thousand additional security personnel. These figures put the Interior Ministry significantly ahead of the regular armed and National Guard forces. This is unlikely to change since the monarchy’s first and foremost concern is its security and continuity.

Furthermore, it is feared, and rightly so, that after the passing of the last two of the well-recognized and traditionally respected first generation of Saudi rulers, King Abdullah and Crown Prince Salman, the second and third generations will be vying for power based on education and achievement records as opposed to seniority, tribal loyalty and family ties.

Unlike the sons and daughters of the founding Saudi patriarch, King Abdul Aziz, the younger royals are less cohesive, more educated and many of them are from foreign mothers who raised their offspring differently than their fathers and mothers were raised. Many of the younger royals have more in common with many in society than with their parents. The majority of second and third royal generations grew up and trained in non-Saudi schools including Nuns Missions. This reality can spell trouble for the country and its Western allies, particularly the US.

The Saudi Interior Ministry’s central mission is to ensure the continuity of the Al-Saud family’s hegemonic rule over all aspects of the Saudi people’s lives and livelihood. Given this fact, no one should assume that King Abdullah or any monarch will attempt to undermine the Ministry’s dominance over the royal family’s security. However, Prince Mohammed has an opportunity to humanize the Ministry since he is a reformer and different from his unpopular father.

Prince Mohammed can restore the public trust in his Ministry by eliminating the role of the most hated group in his ministry, the religious police. He can put an end to arbitrary arrests of political reformers and stop throwing them in Saudi prisons without charges or trial for months and years. Prince Mohammed can stop torture in Saudi prisons and open them to Saudi and non-Saudi human rights groups to find out how prisoners are treated. He can insist on expeditious and open trials for political prisoners and ensure access of prisoners’ families at all times. These steps are humane, feasible and politically prudent, if indeed King Abdullah and his nephew Minister Mohammed are truly reformers and care for their suffering citizens as they claim.

Finally, smooth succession to the Saudi throne is likely to be disrupted once the second and third generations of Saudi princes begin to compete for power. When this occurs, as many Saudi analysts suspect it will, it could plunge the country into political turmoil and even civil strife, which would necessitate the US, as Saudi Arabia’s major super power ally, to intervene militarily to protect Saudi Arabia’s and other Gulf Arab states’ oil fields and production and shipping facilities. America is the only superpower that is capable and acceptable to producers and consumers to secure the flow of oil without which the world economies could collapse.

However, the US is more likely to pay a very high price if it were to intervene militarily to ensure the flow of Arabian oil through the explosive Persian Gulf. Even though Arabs and Muslims will suffer immensely from major disruption of oil production and sales, the majority of them will turn against the US and accuse it of being anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.

In order to avoid this eventuality, Washington is in a position now to exert pressure on the Saudis and other Gulf Arab rulers, privately and publicly, to embark on tangible political reforms that will give their populations a stake in the safety and security of their countries, as a country can only be truly secure and stable if its own citizens are its defenders.

It’s not too late for the US to inform its oil rich Arab allies that the time for real change is overdue.

Massive Arms Deals: To Whose Benefit?

CDHR's Commentary: The autocratic monarchies, Sultanate, and Emirates of the oil rich Gulf Arab states are some of the most heavily armed countries in the world. Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia allocate the largest percentage of their gross domestic product for military spending. The advertised reason for procuring such large quantities of sophisticated and highly priced military hardware is to enable the rulers to defend their populations from their “Iranian enemies”. This claim by the Gulf rulers and arms sellers does not convince many of their citizens or knowledgeable regional observers and analysts.

Analysts argue that the Gulf rulers’ purchases of large quantities of modern military equipment are more likely to be used to defend themselves against their increasingly restless populations. For instance, the Saudi rulers dispatched their troops and heavy equipment to crush the pro-democracy and pro-justice revolt in neighboring Bahrain to prevent the spread of such unrest to Saudi Arabia. Similarly, the Kuwaiti Emir has mobilized his special forces to ensure that the large demonstrations by young and liberal Kuwaitis against his family’s rule are forcefully contained. Critics of the Saudi and other Gulf ruling families argue that since the defense of these rulers and their countries from external threats is guaranteed by their Western allies, specifically the US, they can only be buying this variety of sophisticated and expensive military hardware in order to defend themselves against their restive and oppressed citizens. Furthermore, critics maintain that Gulf rulers are pouring billions of dollars into Western economies through the purchase of expensive military equipment as an advance payment for the protection that Western Powers are expected to provide when needed.  

Following his re-election on November 6, 2012, President Barak Obama asked the US Congress to approve a $24.2 billion arms sale to Arab Gulf states including 25 transports and refueling aircraft for the Saudis. The autocratic Saudi monarchy has already concluded a $60 billion arms deal with the Obama Administration in 2010. They have made these gigantic purchases from the US in addition to larger amounts from eastern and western Europe in recent years . The Saudi people are wondering why their government is spending these huge sums on arms when they know that the US will defend their country from external threats as it did in 1990-1991, when Saddam Hussein attempted to take over Saudi oil fields. They know that as long as the Saudi ruling family has oil and uses it to maintain acceptable prices and an adequate supply, and prevents other OPEC members from causing global economic disruptions through oil supply or currency manipulation, the West will defend them at any cost.  

Many of the politically subdued people of the Gulf States know that their autocratic regimes are more interested in defending themselves against their disenfranchised populations than they are fearful of Iran’s attacks on their desert domains. They also know that those who help to invent and exaggerate the ruling dynasties’ scare tactics regarding external threats are more interested in securing lucrative arms and other business deals than they are concerned about the protection and well-being of the millions of oppressed inhabitants of the Gulf. While many of the Gulf Arab populations understand, and some even appreciate, the West’s reasons for trying to ensure the Gulf region’s stability, they are perplexed and saddened by the West’s continued support for their despotic rulers while simultaneously supporting other Arab populations that are overthrowing their dictators, some of whom are less dangerous to Western interests, democratic systems and way of life than the Saudi monarchy, which the West is doing all it can to protect.

Arab populations of the Gulf have had mostly pleasant and beneficial contacts with Westerners for centuries. All of the land of the small Gulf States was colonized and politically divided by the British Empire. Their infrastructure was fashioned by the British and many in their populations have been educated in Europe. Compared to the Saudis, the populations and ruling families of the small Gulf States, especially Bahrain, are more socially relaxed, politically advanced and religiously tolerant. However, the last two generations of Saudis have had extensive contacts with the West, especially with Americans. This is due to the exploration, production and exportation of Saudi oil. American companies have largely built Saudi Arabia from the ground up. Hundreds of thousands of Saudis and Americans have worked side by side. They have also studied in American schools, and conducted business with US companies almost exclusively until the era of globalization and the rise of Asian powers and cheaper products. Due to this history, the Saudi people like and trust the Americans more than any other people. As accentuated in this article, the Saudi people are lamenting the decline of American involvement in their country, especially in the construction industry.  

Given their long history and association with the West, a significant number of the people of the Gulf States are bewildered by their trusted Western allies’ continued support for tyrannical rulers at a time when prudence demands support for democratic movements, especially in Saudi Arabia, a country whose government’s institutions advocate destruction of democratic systems and whose doctrine poses a lethal threat to Western democracies. Continued unconditional Western sales of military hardware to Gulf dictators will empower extremists and alienate potential allies in Saudi Arabia and throughout the region. The long term consequences are likely to dwarf all financial benefits the West is currently reaping from arms sales to Gulf Arab dictators.

Empowering one’s sworn enemy constitutes indulgence in self-destruction and endangerment of individual liberty and freedom of expression.  

Why Do Saudi Shi’a Protest?

CDHR’s Commentary: The Shi’a citizens of Saudi Arabia constitute 10-15% of the Saudi population. This large segment of Saudi society lives primarily in the oil rich eastern region of Saudi Arabia, known as the Eastern Province. The Shi’a of Saudi Arabia have been subjugated  by the Saudi/Wahhabi doctrinaires, known as The Ikhwan, sine they conquered their wealthy region in 1913. Institutionalized religious-based discriminatory policies against the Saudi Shi'a have been widely documented by human rights groups and by the U.S. Department of Sate.   

Among the multitude of discriminatory and restrictive Saudi government policies against this large segment of its population are lack of religious freedom, frequent closure of Shi’a worship sanctuaries and a severe lack of economic opportunities, judicial protection, political appointments to high public positions and equal rights under the Saudi sectarian legal system.

Similar to the Saudi conquest of the Hejaz (Western region), and the other regions that comprise the current Saudi Kingdom, the conquest of the fertile oases of Qatif and Al-Hasa in the Eastern Province by the ferocious Ikhwan was motivated by desperate economic need. Compared to the mostly inhospitable terrains of Najd region (central Arabia) from where the Saudi/Wahhabi Ikhwan invaders hailed, the oases of Qatif and Al-Hasa offered a bounty of agricultural resources and access to maritime trade, both of which were important sources of income for the Saudis prior to the discovery of petroleum in the Shi’a region in the 1930s.

 

Contrary to the Saudi autocratic regime’s claims that many of its Shi’a citizens are protesting because they are agent of foreign government, ostensibly Iran, the protesters are calling for an end to discrimination against them because of their religious orientation. While largely peaceful, these protests have occasionally turned violent, with some 71 protestors shot by Saudi police, and 32 Saudi police officers shot in retaliation since the outbreak of protests in 2011.  The violent confrontations in the Saudi Eastern Province are in part a response to the harsh measures used by the Saudi security forces, including torture, beating, the use of live ammunition to disperse demonstrators and the arbitrary arrests of prominent human rights activists and clerics.

 

 Instead of recognizing the legitimate grievances of the Shi’a and other citizens and addressing them justly, the Saudi officials have blamed the unrest and justified their crackdown on public demonstrations on interference by an unnamed foreign instigator, Iran. It’s no secret that there is no love between the Ayatollahs of Iran and their counterparts in Riyadh. Tragically, the Saudi regime has used its own citizens as a scapegoat for its failures to solve its problems with Iran’s theocrats, whom some Saudi royals and controlled medias accuse of inciting unrest in eastern Saudi Arabia, a claim that has been repeatedly refuted by the Shi’a and other Saudi and non-Saudi analysts.

 Dissent, peaceful demonstrations and all forms of civil society are prohibited in Saudi Arabia. Thus, protesters in Saudi Arabia, regardless of religion, region, gender or ethnicity are automatically labeled law violators and threat to the State’s stability. Unless this system of oppression is reformed and people’s legitimate demands to be liberated from fear and injustice are addressed in a timely manner, public anger will only lead to a violent outcome at a much larger scale. 

As Saudi Arabia’s close allies and protectors, the Western powers, especially the US, can use their substantial leverage to convince the Saudi royals to understand that time is not on their side.  The best, safest, cheapest and only way to save the country from a violent uprising is for the Saudi regime to share real power with all of its citizens regardless of gender or religious orientation.

 Expansion of Saudi Lethal Doctrine

CDHR’s Commentary: In collaboration with the incredibly weak and corrupt Afghani government, the Saudi monarchy has recently announced that it will invest $100 million in building one of the largest Islamic Centers in the world atop a mountain overlooking the Afghan’s impoverished capital, Kabul.   The Center will be managed jointly by the Saudi religious establishment and the Afghani Ministry for Hajj and Religious Affairs. The proposed King Abdullah’s Center will accommodate 15,000 worshipers at a time and provide an education for 5,000 religious students. The Center will be named after King Abdullah, which is not surprising since there are already three massive Islamic centers and mosques named after Saudi monarchs: King Fahd’s Centers in Culver City, California and London, England, and King Faisal’s Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, which is considered Pakistan’s national mosque.

Afghanistan is the poorest country in Central Asia, coming in nearly at the bottom of the human development index, with abysmal literacy and education rates, an almost complete lack of women's rights, a low life expectancy, and wrenchingly high mortality rates for children, with nearly a fifth of all Afghan children dying before the age of five. The 100 million dollars the Saudis will invest in the Kabul Islamic Center could be better used for programs to improve literacy, infrastructure, or healthcare for the impoverished Afghan people; instead the Saudi King has decided to spend this huge sum of money to propagate Wahhabism in a country where most of the citizens are already religious zealots.

Outside interference by foreign powers has long plagued Afghanistan, but nothing can top the Saudi “Wahhabization” of the country; the establishment of King Abdullah’s Center in Kabul is yet another example of this. The Saudi government hopes to socialize and indoctrinate a new generation of religious students for political aims, just as they have in the past by means of the infamous Saudi funded madrassas in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which continue to be the primary source of recruitment for the Sunni Taliban extremist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates were the only countries in the world to give diplomatic recognition to the extreme Taliban regime during its draconian rule over Afghanistan.

The construction of such a monumental religious institution in Afghanistan's capital is a maneuver by the Saudi rulers to ensure that their doctrinal hegemony remains not only over Afghanistan, following the withdrawal of the majority of foreign forces in 2014, but over all of the Sunni Muslims in Central and South East Asia, especially in the oil and other resource-rich former Soviet colonies.

Saudi Women: The March is Irreversible

CDHR’s Commentary: In September 2011, King Abdullah decreed that women would be appointed to the Shura Council for the 2013 term, and based on this royal decree, the Shura Council has begun to prepare itself and the chamber for the arrival of the would-be appointed female members if the King’s decree is upheld.

Membership in the Shura Council is an important step for Saudi women, who have long been marginalized by the male-dominated Saudi system. Women lack a voice in government and in society, as they are often seen as less than full citizens. This is due to severe institutionalized discriminatory restrictions on women, known as the male guardian system. However, women are increasingly and unabashedly standing up for their rights and demanding equality as full citizens, including the right to vote, full employment, and mobility, such as the right to drive.

Despite the measured psychological and social significance of appointing women to the Saudi national Consultative Council, Majlis Al-Shura, a closer look at the powerless council raises the question of whether the inclusion of women in the council will make a difference or will legitimize the regime’s deception by appearing in favor of women’s rights, while in reality enforcing social injustice. The council’s current 150 male members are appointed and paid by the King based on their loyalty to the ruling family, answering only to the King and not to the Saudi people. The would-be appointed women members will similarly be appointed and paid by the King based on their loyalty to him and his family; therefore, they will not be representing the interests of the overwhelming majority of Saudi women.

The Shura Council has no legislative power. The council cannot initiate, pass or enforce laws and while the council advises the King, he is not required to accept any of its suggestions (and he rarely does, if ever). For example, all decisions, including budgets, are initiated and determined before they are sent to the council for review and suggestions. Appointing women to the council is not likely to make one bit of difference in terms of changing the powerless council’s authority or the Saudi system’s continued discriminatory policies and practices against women. However, the fact that women will be appointed to the council is a positive step for women in achieving their usurped legitimate rights.

After being denied their basic rights for decades, small steps, albeit cosmetic, are important for women in Saudi Arabia. No one has any illusion that appointing women to the Shura Council will result in quick and easy progress for them, but it is a step in the right direction because the more they gain recognition as full citizens, the stronger their demands will be and the less their enemies in society and institutions, especially the “religious” establishment, will be able to stop them from participating in and contributing to the political, social, economic, and educational well-being of Saudi society.

 State-Imposed Social Taboos Result in Tragedies

 

CDHR’s Commentary: Due to the Saudi government’s harsh and unnatural policy against all forms of public musical and theatrical entertainment, Saudis resort to dangerous and illegal activities such as the outlawed nomadic tradition of live ammunitions to celebrate their “victories” or happy occasions. Recently, such celebratory gunfire led to the deaths of more than twenty people due to the bullets damaging electric wires during recent wedding festivities.  Live public music and dancing are prohibited because they are considered un-Islamic, and therefore must be banned.

 

Joyous activities are considered diversionary behaviors that interfere with people’s focus on prayers, God, and the goodwill of the rulers in Saudi Arabia. In other words, happy indulgences are considered evil or “the West’s decadent inventions,” designed to corrupt Saudi moral values and destroy Muslim cultures. The Saudi government and the Wahhabi religious establishment fear a population that is not always somber and concentrating on their devotion to Islam, as interpreted by the religious extremists and sanctioned by the Saudi rulers. They consider entertainment debauched, they strictly ban movie theaters and severely censor television shows, and they prohibit women from participating in sports, publically and privately.

 

Many Saudis spend their holiday breaks and annual vacations in Gulf countries in order to experience entertainment denied to them in their country. The majority of movie theater goers in neighboring Bahrain during weekends and holiday periods are Saudi citizens. It is estimated that one million Saudis crossed the borders to celebrate their most important religious holiday, Eid Adha, in Dubai to get away from their country’s stifling taboos and indulge in social activities not allowed in Saudi Arabia. Others resort to secret or banned activities such as playing in underground bands, knowing that they could be arrested and punished by the system’s omnipresent spying agents, specifically the state’s religious police who enforce their interpretation of religious laws on all citizens and expatriates regardless of religious beliefs and orientations.

 

The tragic deaths and injuries during the recent Abqaiq wedding celebration in eastern Saudi Arabia, as well as many other unreported incidents, could have been avoided had normal entertainment such as musical bands been allowed to entertain the families and invited guests, instead of forcing the celebrators to fire their guns in the air to show their joyous passion during weddings and other occasions and in the process cause the deaths of innocent people.  

 

Recruiting Female Religious Police: Progression or Regression?  

CDHR’s Commentary: The head of the notorious Saudi religious police (Mutaween, or domesticators), Mr. Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, a descendant of the founder of Wahhabism, Abdul Wahhab, feels a need to recruit female religious police to join his agency. It is assumed that he wants to recruit women because they will be more empathetic than the stick-touting bearded men who comb all public places to make sure that women are covered, shops are closed five times a day for prayers, and people are herded to mosques to pray whether they like it or not. Another assumption is that by hiring women, religious police will be in accordance with King Abdullah’s measured reform initiative. While there might be some merits to these assumptions, the system’s agenda is always different from its stated pronouncements. 

One has to understand that the religious police have only one assignment, to spy on and terrorize people. The ruthlessness of the religious police intensified when King Faisal ascended to the Saudi throne in 1964 after he collaborated with the Ulama, the religious clerics, to overthrow his brother, King Saud, in a palace coup. In addition to enforcing the dress code, forcing people to pray five times a day, and making sure that women are invisible (covered in black), the religious police concentrate on surveillance of pro-reform and social justice activists whom they can easily accuse of religious failings or other social stigmas.

Recruitment of female religious police will not be based on kindness, open-mindedness, empathy, or better education than their male counterparts. Having female religious police spying on and controlling women’s activities and movements will make it more acceptable to the Saudi male population and make the system look more sensitive to local norms and as an equal opportunity employer. It is unlikely that female women religious police will be any gentler or kinder than men because they will be appointed from ultraconservative families and religious extremist backgrounds. Female religious police are more likely have internalized and accepted their status as inferior and subservient to men.

The idea of recruiting female religious police is to expand the system’s surveillance and hunt women who are known for their advocacy of change in society.  Additionally, having women harassing women will create another layer of division among the already severely divided and segregated society along religious, tribal, gender and regional lines.  

What the ruling elites fail to understand or acknowledge is that the Saudi people, like their counterparts in the region and the world, are becoming more aware of their regime’s duplicitous maneuvers and of their usurped rights. What the people want and deserve is emancipation from the yoke of religious, social, and political totalitarianism as opposed to handouts and the use of religion as a tool to control, silence and exploit the population.

Women are Excelling in Overcoming Hurdles

CDHR’s Commentary: Despite the many hurdles and restrictions imposed on Saudi women by their government and male-dominated society, they are making their voices heard and demanding their rights as equal citizens known to their government, media, male compatriots and the international community. Due to the Saudi gender apartheid system, women have long been relegated to a second class citizens’ status and consequently denied their most basic rights such as freedom of movement, mobility and even access to lifesaving medication without their male relatives’ approval. 

However, Saudi women are becoming increasingly more creative, bold and defiant as exemplified by the art exhibit of three Saudi women that opened recently in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The exhibit focuses on “questions of identity and freedom” and addresses women’s issues and by extension the crippling attitude, discriminatory policies and practices of the Saudi system toward half of its society, women. Fittingly, the exhibit is called “Soft Power,” which testifies to the courage of these Saudi women who defy severe constraints and challenge their number one foe, the religious establishment, in a peaceful, yet extraordinarily effective manner.

Not only are these three imaginative and creative women artists using their talents to express their feelings and point of view, they are also chipping away at the austere religious establishment’s severe opposition to images that depict anything they consider un-Islamic. Saudi artists, women and men, are beginning to use art frequently as a form of protest against the multitude of social, political, economic and other societal illnesses. Women are making measured progress in all aspects of Saudi society, from art to law, albeit at a snail’s speed, but they are determined to break all the taboos that have been placed on them for no reason other than their gender.