Director’s Comment:
While the world is going through a challenging economic, social, political and religious
transformative period, the Saudi self-appointed “religious” men work hard to avoid any
change. Innovation is Bedah (novelty), therefore contradictory to the pure Saudi culture and
an antithesis to the teachings of Islam, which these men interpret and apply to maintain
control over people’s lives. According to these men, whatever the situation may be, the West
is to blame for all that is morally, socially and economically wrong and decadent. A rash of
Fatawa (plural of Fatwa) has been unleashed by unregulated constellations of religious men,
whose religious authority is unrestricted and cannot be questioned or challenged without
risking accusation of apostasy, which is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia specifically,
but also in most Muslim countries.
First, dog owners were condemned, then kittens were considered threats to Saudi moral stand
and gender segregation, and now rats are being condemned, particularly Mickey Mouse. Never
in its recent history has Saudi Arabia been more threatened by domestic and external factors
than at the present. Yet, the Saudi self-declared religious cult, supported by the ruling
elites to intimidate people, is using communication, mosques and schools to condemn kittens,
dogs, and rats, and to declare that TV owners who air anything that contradicts Islamic
teachings and values must be put to death. Due to high censorship, the absence of
independent civil society and free press, and the forbidding of non-religious debates in
Saudi Arabia, people have been forced to resort to rigid theocrats to interpret life and all
matters related to it.
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Director’s Comment:
Beheadings in Saudi Arabia used to be saved for Saudi citizens. They were designed to create
incapacitating and omnipresent fear in people’s hearts in order to remind them of what’s
awaiting those amongst them who might contemplate undermining the royals’ control over every
aspect of their lives. This is evidenced by the method of executions. Convicted victims,
under the arbitrary Shariah law, are paraded to the chopping squares all over the country,
where Friday worshippers have been herded to witness the cruelty of the state’s punishment
practices. The convicted victims are hooded by police, in front of worshippers, family,
friends and other onlookers, then asked to kneel and wait for the state’s executioner to
swing his sword and decapitate their heads.
Recently, non-Western expatriates have been subject to the same cruelty faced by Saudi
citizens since the Saudi-Wahhabi allies’ ascendance to power many decades ago. Many of the
beheaded expatriates come from countries were beheadings rarely happen or do not happen at
all. The message here is that the Saudi system does not recognize any form of rehabilitation
for anyone regardless of one’s state of mind, circumstances, age or gender. Ironically,
crimes in Saudi Arabia have never been deterred by severing criminals’ heads in the public
chopping squares. On the contrary, crimes are increasing steadily and intensely. So why
continue this most savage practice? To remind the Saudi citizens of who is in charge of
their lives and fates.
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Director’s Comment:
In a press conference recently, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif blamed the preachers in
mosques for not fulfilling their obligations: Protecting Saudi youth from falling victim to
religious extremists. This is a very perplexing pronouncement. Prince Naif controls the
religious clerics he blames for failing to instruct Saudis and other Muslims against
religious extremism and intolerance of Muslim minorities and non-Muslims. Prince Naif is
known for his staunch and uncompromising opposition to the transformation of Saudi education
and religious institutions, wherein young Saudis are religiously brainwashed into believing
that other religions are inferior. The men in charge of these institutions are the same
clerics Prince Naif blames for religious extremism and its byproduct, terrorism, which is
endangering the world, including his family’s domain, Saudi Arabia.
Prince Naif controls the ferocious Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice, the interpreter and enforcer of religious intolerance. Not only does he control these
cult-like zealot men, but he uses them to intimidate the population. He has made it known
that this extremist group, opposed to modernity, women’s rights, minorities and democratic
reforms, will exist as long as “Islam is in on earth” and his family rules Saudi Arabia.
This is the most unpopular governmental policy in Saudi Arabia. Most Saudis, including
members of the royal family, such as prince Talal, Prince Khalid, governor of Mecca, Prince
Bandar, former Saudi Ambassador to Washington, Prince Al-Waleed, influential businessman and
many others, would like to see the power of the religious establishment drastically reduced,
restricted or eliminated all together. Naif is going against the national consensus with
regards to the excessive abuse of power by his religious extremists. He would benefit the
country, his family and the world by dissolving this group and sending them to earn a living
and reduce the country’s dependence on expatriate laborers.
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Director’s Comment:
According to the Saudi self-appointed religious interpreters of all matters concerning
women, Saudi women should completely be cloaked except for one eye. Obsessed with women’s
sexuality, the Saudi clerics feel that if women show two eyes, they would trick men into
thinking the most objectionable and sinful thoughts. According to Saudi clerics, women were
created to corrupt and mislead men into committing forbidden acts, which could only lead to
the creation of a weak, backward, corrupt and confused society. Isn’t this society what the
Saudi clerics and their handlers have created?
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Director’s Comment:
The Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud Al-Faisal, confirmed that his government hosted a meeting
between the Afghani government and the Taliban forces recently. This disclosure raises
intriguing if not serious questions. Has the Saudi government maintained friendly relations
with the Taliban after the US dealt it a mortifying defeat (in October 2001) for allowing
Al-Qaeda to reside, train and plan its deadly 9/11 attack? If this is the case, wouldn’t the
US government know that its so called ally in fighting terrorism, the Saudi government, is
cuddling with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the closest ally of Osama bin Laden? Or have the Saudis
extracted a concession (not to talk about democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia or dictate an
Israeli-Palestinian agreement) from the US government in return for the Saudi service to
re-establish contacts with its former ally, the Taliban, and convince them to stop their
attacks on the coalition troops in Afghanistan, and share power with the Afghani government?
The Saudis did the same thing in Iraq during the “surge.” They instructed their Iraqi
minority Sunni allies to halt their attacks on the coalition troops, work with the Americans
to stabilize Iraq, and in turn have major decision making power. Whether in Iraq,
Afghanistan or Israel-Palestine, the Saudis want to ensure their influence through their
proxies, such as Hamas, the Taliban and the Sunni minority in Iraq.
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Director’s Comment:
Due to the frightful absence of accountability, transparency, public scrutiny, free press
and visionary leadership, the Saudi ruling elites keep repeating the same mistakes that
could be avoided had they only put the people’s interest first. If they had done so, they
would have learned a stark lesson from the mismanagement of public wealth in the 1970s-80s.
After the 1973 oil embargo against the West, the oil price leaped from $3 per barrel to
$11.65 in one year1. This unprecedented jump in oil prices brought sudden riches to Saudi
Arabia, which, at the time, was ruled by a frugal and uncompromising autocratic ruler, King
Faisal. For the first time in the country’s history, a budget of $140 billion was announced.
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Director’s Comment:
The Saudi regime has constantly reminded its captive citizens of how lucky they are to be
living in a secure, stable and peaceful environment where Islam was born and where its
shrines reside. Some officials continue to praise the Saudi regime, even though the country
has never been more unstable than at the present. This instability is due to many internal
and external factors, such as the public’s unmet aspirations, expectations, high
unemployment among the youth, women’s demands for their rights, and the empowerment of
religious extremists by the royal family. This has been a trend in Saudi Arabia, especially
after the occupation of the Holy Mosque in Mecca in 1979, by religious zealots whose
objective was to overthrow the House of Saud and run the country their extremist way. They
almost succeeded in toppling the regime, but did not thanks to external help, especially
from the French Legionnaire. A staggering number (more than 2,000) of captured terrorists
or terrorists to be have been imprisoned and interrogated at the Saudi Ministry of Interior,
and are now being handed over to the Saudi Shariah (Islamic Law) courts to be sentenced for
their alleged crimes. It is not only Saudi terrorists, but terrorists from other Arab and
Muslim countries who seem to be determined to destabilize Saudi Arabia and its ruling
family. This may prove much harder to stop, let alone eradicate, because non-Saudis could
recruit from their countries and enter Saudi Arabia to cause havoc.
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