Director’s Comment:
The highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Saudi Mufti, is one of the most opponent personalities of women’s rights, equality and integration into the male dominated Saudi society. Like his ally and protector, the Saudi royal family, with the exception of Prince Talal, the powerful Mufti is dedicated to keeping the Saudi society divided, powerless, fearful and oppressed for as long as he can get away with it. Like all feudal men, the Mufti uses religion to control and crush people’s hopes and aspirations of self-reliance and the desire to explore their potential in creating an educated, tolerant, united and forward looking society. The Mufti does work for and is empowered by the Saudi ruling princes, so he too is the victim of a system that needs transformation, from top to bottom. Religious extremism is not only a threat to the Saudi people and their stability, but to international peace, security and the world’s economic stability. Sa
udi and other Muslim women are the primary victims of the application of the Wahhabi interpretation and implementation of radical Islam.
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Director’s Comment:
Shariah law is an arbitrary system subject to any interpretation and implementation by any judge in Saudi Arabia, yet it is also the law of the land. There are many discourses among Muslims as to the origin, interpretation and application of Shariah law. Modernity, globalization and unprecedented economic interdependence demand accountability, transparency, rule of law and independent judicial systems, operated by modern men and women who have diverse religious and secular training. These men and women should either be elected or appointed based on their merits and service to the public.
The politicization and use of Islam as an uncontested ruling tool has allowed for substantial oppression and discrimination against women and religious minorities, as well as the rejection of non-Muslims in recent decades, especially in countries like Saudi Arabia. These are just a few of the multitude of reasons as to why many Muslims across the globe are demanding reinterpretation and codification of the Shariah law. Codification of Shariah would accommodate the modern needs of Muslims and would respect the individual’s basic divine and natural rights. Codifying the Shariah law in Saudi Arabia will resonate throughout the Muslim world. Saudi society suffers from an arbitrary judicial system, which, in the name of religion and Shariah law, is interpreted by religious zealots who designate themselves as the final arbiters of every aspect of the subdued Saudi people’s lives. Saudi Arabia plays a major religious and economic role in human lives worldwide, and with that comes a
huge responsibility that cannot be ignored or derailed because of “our religion and traditions.” No one cares about either in this day and age.
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Director’s Comment:
The University of Shanghai, in Communist China conducted a survey of 3,000 universities worldwide last year and ranked Saudi universities only above Somalia and Djibouti, which led a Saudi citizen to say, “I learn something new, I did not even know Somalia and Djibouti have universities.” The unjustifiable, unacceptable and dangerous scientific backwardness in Saudi Arabia lies squarely on the shoulders and conscious of the Saudi royal family’s system, which intentionally puts Salafist religious extremists in charge of education.
In addition, the stifling social restrictions and the lack of incentives and motivations that force students to compete, study hard, debate and challenge each other, are absent. Gender segregation in schools plays a disproportionate destructive role in learning at all levels in Saudi schools. Those of us who studied in Western universities understand the positive impact of co-ed institutions. Debates and socializing among male and female students, faculties and families are very important parts of the learning process. They enable us to develop life-long bonds, familiarity with each other and acceptance of each other as equal citizens and as human beings first.
Building big economic cities without teaching people to build and run them is a waste of public wealth and an insult to people’s intelligence. Roughly 80% of the laborers needed to build Abdullah city in Jeddah will be imported, as well as most of the material and expertise to build it. More money is used to import workers, services and material, than is used to develop the country’s essential institutions. Where will most professors come from when the out of sight King Abdullah University is completed? Where do most of the engineers, designers, surveyors, pipeline fitters, technicians, doctors, nurses, medicines, telephones, trucks and airplanes come from, that keep the Saudi economy afloat? The answer is: from other countries. The people of Saudi Arabia need and deserve a leadership that invests in human development and puts the interest of the voiceless and restricted people ahead of one family’s absolute rule and domination.
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Director’s Comment:
The Saudi-Wahhabi harsh religious-based policies are designed to create fear, divisiveness and unending conflicts among their severely controlled citizens. Women and religious minorities in all parts of Saudi Arabia are perpetual victims of vindictive and erratic government behavior and revenge against those who refuse to convert to their domestically, regionally and globally loathed brand of Islam, Wahhabism. While the state created and imposed the Wahhabi brand of Islam on all citizens and residents of the desolate Kingdom, no group is more victimized by its severe application than the estimated 500 thousand member Ismaeli religious minority in the agriculturally rich region of Najran, on the Saudi – Yemeni borders.
Historically, the people of Najran, Najranis, have acted as a deterrent force against Yemeni incursions to Saudi Arabia. In fact, the Najranis helped the Saudi royal family defeat the Yemenis and add Najran to its domain in 1934. After the annexation of this fertile and relatively peaceful region, the Saudi family started planting its ruthless religious Wahhabi fanatics among the Najranis by sheer force. They expropriated the indigenous people’s land, forced them into paying taxes, Zakat, to feed and house the new Wahhabi occupiers, and imposed Wahhabi religious courts on them. Tragically, the Wahhabis consider the Najranis to be heretics and apostates. Thus, they must be punished until they convert to Wahhabism or abide by its doctrine in silence. As fierce, proud and defiant tribesmen, the Najranis refused to succumb to the brutal Saudi-Wahhabi religious doctrine. Consequently, the Najranis pay a very high price. They are excluded from their country’s riches, good health c
are, social services, employment and clean water to drink. Mortality among Najranis is said to be the highest in the Saudi Kingdom.
In addition, the people of Najran are collectively punished because of what this human rights activist (born and raised in Najran) promotes: Religious freedom, empowerment of women, privatization of all pubic utilities, free elections and total transformation of all Saudi institutions.
Najranis have no defenders within or outside of Saudi Arabia. Their region is tucked far away in the foothills of the sprawling Saudi – Yemeni mountains in southern Saudi Arabia. The Saudi reporters hardly go to Najran for fear of government reprisal. In addition, the media is government owned and controlled and most reporters are from the majority Sunni population, some of whom share the Wahhabi religious resentment toward religious minorities. Even the Saudi governmental human rights organizations do not travel and investigate the mistreatment of their fellow citizens because of their religious bias. The head of the Saudi government’s National Human Rights Association, Mr. Turki al-Sudairy, admits his lack of knowledge of the plight of the people of Najran. Representatives of foreign embassies do not travel to Najran to see for themselves what kind of brutal conditions religious minorities incur because of their beliefs. This includes the U.S. embassy and consulates person
nel in Saudi Arabia.
Having failed to subdue the Najranis and force them into embracing Wahhabism, the Saudi government is building permanent housing settlements for thousands of Sunni Yemeni immigrants around Najran to ensure the confinement of the Najranis in a quarantine-like fashion, but there is more to the story. Najran is close to the Yemeni region of Saadah, where a strong and fierce group of Yemeni religious minorities, Zeidi Muslims, reside. This group is religiously and tribally close to the Ismaelis of Najran, as both are offshoots of Shaism-Shiites. The Yemeni Zeidis are also oppressed by the tyrannical Sunni government in Yemen, who is the recipient of Saudi largess. The Zeidi group of Saadah has been fighting and inflicting death and destruction on the troops and property of the government of the close Saudi ally, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen. The Saudi and Yemeni governments want to keep these groups separated and isolated for fear of future cooperation between the
two oppressed minorities on both sides of the mountainous borders. This is partially the untold reason for building new settlements for Yemeni immigrants, which will further oppress and isolate the Najran population, a large segment of Saudi society. This reality belies the assertion by the Saudi government and clergy men that Islam (as practiced in Saudi Arabia) is a religion of peace and is tolerant of differences.
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Director’s Comment:
The Saudi government’s religious police, dubbed sarcastically by the public, “The Commission for the Prevention of Virtue and Promotion of Vice,” is an agency notorious for spying and intimidation. The population is constantly terrorized by this large contingency of the government’s many layers of security. They can do whatever they want, including beating people to death in front of their loved ones and getting away with it. This is direct evidence that they are part of a government-controlled agency and not, as the government is quick to state, religious fanatics that could create problems for the royal family if it embarks on any tangible democratic reforms and empowerment of women. They are under the control, direction and instruction of the Saudi Minister of Interior, Prince Naif, who is also in charge of prisons, torture and forced confessions. In an interview in 2003, Prince Naif stated that he could not imagine life and the survival of his family without the religious
police. “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 Quran and Sunnah, is a major pillar of any Islamic country.” This amounts to absolute rule as long as Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country under the Al-Sauds’ reign; and it will remain so because non-Muslims cannot be citizens or even worship publicly in the country.
No group is targeted more by the religious police than women. They follow women wherever they go and, without any cause or justification, can take them to prison, beat them and humiliate them as they desire. Earlier this month, a Saudi businesswoman, Yara, sat down for a cup of coffee with a male business associate and others in a public coffee shop in the basement of the building where the woman’s office is located. In a few minutes, the religious police showed up, took her out, threw her in a taxi, confiscated her mobile phone and took her to their interrogation center. After that, she was taken to the notorious Malaz prison, where she was thrown in a cell with all kinds of convicted inmates.
The given reason for such humiliating and unjustified abuse of power by the ferocious Saudi religious police, which is the norm in Saudi Arabia, is to maintain the country’s “Islamic and nomadic traditions” and save men from being lured by women to commit un-Islamic sexual offenses. However, the Saudi people know that the real reason behind severe gender segregation is to keep people divided and isolated from each other. All forms of public gatherings, independent civil society, sharing of ideas, exchange of views and strengthening of citizens’ shared values are considered antithesis to Islam and its teachings. In reality, Islam and its traditions have very little to do with gender separation. The government’s objective is to keep the population divided, confused, alien to and suspicious of each other. Blaming Islam and nomadic tradition for the compulsory gender segregation and humiliating experiences Saudi women face every day, from the minute they leave their fortified pri
son-like homes until they return, is an insult to Islam and the historically proud people of Arabia.
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Director’s Comment:
To ensure its already stifling grip on free speech and the flow of information, the Minister of Information of the Arab League approved a censorship bill at the Arab League meeting on February 12, 2008. The bill was drafted by two ostensibly “moderate” Arab allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for the Arab League, a group of nations that is composed of 22 tyrannical regimes (with the exception of Lebanon) and led by the United States. The bill forbids criticism of Arab autocratic regimes and their policies under the guise of preventing subversion, when in fact it reinforces Arab tyrannical regimes to continue doing as they wish, unchallenged. The only two occasions during which the Arab League produces tangible results is when its interior ministers meet to share information about torture, imprisonment, spying on their citizens and putting down pro-democratic reformers. The other occasion is when members meet to ensure collective rejection of all forms of free expression, especial
ly as they relate to their draconian policies at home and abroad. Freedom of speech and expression would contribute immensely to giving the Arab people a say in decisions that affect every aspect of their lives and the well-being of the international community, such as potentially preventing the use of Islam as a tool of oppression, discrimination against women and minorities, and incitement against non-Muslims.
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Director’s Comment:
Saudis and their apologists in Western universities and public relation suites are quick to point fingers against others who discriminate against people because of color, religion, social status or ethnicity. Yet there are few places on earth where black people are condemned and have less rights and respect than in Saudi Arabia. Historically, many black people were brought to Arabia as slaves. The ruling family used to be among the biggest slave owners in the Arab world. Former King Faisal decreed slave emancipation in the early 1960’s, but only on paper.
Many princes and princesses kept their slaves as many of them still have black people to clean and maintain the palaces, cook for them, and select their favorite wardrobes for them when they decide to get dressed or go to bed. Discrimination against black people, whether they are Saudi nationals or emigrants, spreads through every community, class and corner of the country. It is virtually unheard of for a black man to marry a non-black Saudi.
Due to its limited resources, CDHR has not worked on this important issue as much as it should, but there are many social, political, religious and economic problems that keep this small center over-worked as it is. The Saudis have many challenging problems to deal with and solve and nothing is impossible to do, but the proper institutions have to be in place to solve these problems and move the country forward because the alternative could be costly.
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