Driving Is Not The Issue

The arrest and interrogation of Manal Al-Shareef, an inexperienced advocate for Saudi women’s rights to be permitted to drive so they are able to take their children to school and save their lives in emergency situations, is not the reason for the Saudi authorities’ arbitrary invasion of her house and snatching her while sleeping with her child at 3 AM on May 21, 2011.

The Saudi regime’s daunting fear is deeper than women getting behind the wheel. The theocratic and autocratic ruling Saudi men are scared that their captive population, male and female, might break away from the grinding fears through which the regime has been able to crush people’s aspirations, to treat them as less than human beings and to control every aspect of people’s lives for decades since the founding of the state in 1932 and historically for centuries before that.

Like many human rights advocates before her, Ms. Al-Shareef will be severely physically abused and humiliated at the hands of the Saudi Interior Ministry’s hired mercenaries while in prison. This is done not only to silence her but also to send a message to anyone who dares question the Saudi regime’s absolute rule. Like her predecessors, she will come out of prison apologizing for crimes she never committed and praising the system for its wisdom and just governing practices. Welcome to Saudi Arabia in the twenty-first century.

“US to sell Saudi Arabia arms worth $60bn in biggest deal”

By Ali Alyami; Ali@cdhr.info

Despite spending tens of billions of dollars on military hardware and detective technologies during the course of the last fifty years, the Saudis have never fought a war, big or small, on their own in the past; nor will they dare do so in the future. To sustain a major regional war, i.e with Iran, would require public support and participation.

The citizens of Saudi Arabia are unlikely to lay their lives on the line for what they (and the rest of the world) consider a corrupt, archaic, and repressive social system. Besides, the regime would be less inclined to call on the people to participate in war even if it is in self-defense. The monarchs do not trust their people to carry guns, use missiles, fly fighter-bombers, or drive tanks.
The Saudi monarchs, like their counterparts in the rest of the Gulf region, best not risk their fortunes on a bet that a repressed population will shed their own blood to further protect and enrich their masters. On the contrary, the hereditary rulers will continue to rely on external entities to protect them from each other, domestic uprising and external aggression. The Gulf’s oligarchies know that engaging in wars would expedite their downfall.
The pending $ 60 billion arms sale to the unstable Saudi monarchy, which it does not need, may help the US economy in the short run. But it could boomerang, for three related major reasons.

One, given the Saudi people’s, especially youth, women and minorities’ sprouting and enigmatically ignored needs and skyrocketing expectations, the Saudi regime’s stability is likely to erode regardless of how much arms and external protection the autocratic monarchs purchase. Long term stability must be built within, on service to the population, rather than military muscle shows.

Two, the hi-tech hardware could end up in the hands of the wrong people, including members of the ruling family who share extremist and terrorist groups objectives.
Third, do we need the Saudi regime to get more leverage over our domestic and foreign policies by investing in building up our already bloated defense industry?

The Saudi people have been warned about potential threats from Iran. They remain skeptical. They have been given a seventy year lie that Israel is their mortal enemy and obstructing the transformation of their vast desert kingdom from inhospitable sand dunes into a garden of Eden. To the monarchs’ and their beneficiaries

discomfort, the Saudi people are slowly discovering that this was a fictitious ploy by their ruling autocratic and theocratic elites to deflect their attention from their homegrown social, political, economic, educational and religious ills.
It would be revealing to find out how and where would the majority of the Saudi people like to see their money spent. Would they want the oil bounty spent buying arms to protect the ruling family, or repairing and modernizing their dilapidated infrastructure?
Based on what I know, they would happily choose the latter. Major Saudi cities don’t have sewage systems, reliable drinking water or electricity systems.

In addition, city streets, businesses and residential areas are not even numbered. Modern streets, hospitals, sewage systems, and the like would do more for the poorly served Saudi citizen than inordinately expensive fighter jets flying over their heads and deafening their ears.

Finally, our government and other institutions may want to rethink their approach to the Saudi government and its long-term objectives. Time to understand that the power and effectiveness of money, prayer callers and fatwa issuers slowly but surely must wane, and be replaced by modern state institutions which enfranchise and enrich the average citizen of this top-heavy land.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/123459-us-to-sell-saudi-arabia-arms-worth-60bn-in-biggest-deal.html

Saudi woman journalist sentenced to 60 lashes

Director's Comments:

CDHR denounces the Jeddah Summary Court and its presiding religious extremist Judge, Muhammad Amin Mirdad, for sentencing journalist Rosanna Al-Yami (R.A) to sixty flogs for doing her job. According to Saudi and global media outlets, R.A. “…was accused of being an accomplice to Abdul Jawad (Saudi male citizen) who provoked a furor because he boasted on TV about having premarital sex, provided explicit sexual descriptions and described how to pick up girls and women, “ Arabnews. “Imagine how busy the courts and public squares would be if every person in free societies where freedoms of speech and expression are protected under the rule of law are convicted and sentenced to flogging because they boasted about dating and sexual activities,” Said Dr. Ali Alyami, Director of the Washington based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi religious courts (rule of law and freedom of expression are considered an immoral Western invention, therefore antithesis to Islamic teachings) and their mostly ultra conservative (extremist) judges issue arbitrary and severe sentencing based on their mood, religious orientation and preconceived notions. The courts use these same standards to determine methods of punishment that may have very little to do with the case at hand, with the intention of sending chilling messages to those who dare think out of the box. Public flogging is the most humiliating form of punishment and is administered with the intention of reminding people that they are perpetual minors incapable of being in charge of their own lives and actions. Verdicts and summary sentencing in Saudi courts are not designed to fit the actions or crimes at hand, but to create an all-encompassing and enduring fear of the system’s heavy handedness. Abdul Jawad, the primary bragger has been sentenced to 1,000 flogging and a 5 year term of imprisonment.

As the birth place of Islam, home to its holy shrines (in Mecca and Medina) and promoter of an austere interpretation of the Quran and Shariah Law, the Saudi establishment plays an influential role in Muslims lives and the perception they have of themselves as well as non-Muslims. What happens in Saudi courts resonates throughout Muslim communities. Sentencing the Saudi female journalist, R. A. to 60 floggings in a public square is not because she was an accomplice to a minor event, but to intimidate other Saudi journalists and the public in general into total submission to the rule of the jungle carried out by men whose ultimate goal is total control over people’s lives in the name of God.

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http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2009112355249

Shoura member: Saudis need attitude adjustment

Well known Saudi businessman believes “Saudis need attitude adjustment”

Director's Comment:

After complaining about the Western media’s negative depiction of Saudis, Dr. Najeeb Al-Zamil, a well-connected Saudi businessman and a member of an appointed national assembly of 150 men (Majlis Alshura, a powerless committee of advisors to the King) has commendably raised an issue that human rights groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and CDHR have studied and highlighted for years: The plight of mostly poor Asian expatriates in Saudi Arabia. Some have described the treatment of unskilled expatriates in Saudi Arabia as a modern form of slavery because of their unbearable living conditions, meager financial compensation and mistreatment by their employers. Dr. Al-Zamil correctly asked: “These expatriates who have come here to make a living and to improve their lives — why do they not like us?" He attributed it to assortments of anecdotes including gloomy facial expressions, “This is because Saudis are known for always putting on a grim face."

In this case, Dr Al-Zamil, like many Saudi officials and employers, shunned dealing with the real causes of expatriates’ resentment toward their employers. The dehumanizing treatment of expatriates begins the minute they arrive in Saudi Arabia. For starters, their passports are confiscated by Saudi authorities and handed over to their prospective employers. These expatriates consist of professionals, technocrats, cheap laborers, family drivers and the unluckiest amongst them, maids. Once they are in the custody of their employers, or masters in the case of maids and family drivers, they are treated as property of their employers. They cannot leave the country, try to escape abuses in the hands of their current employers, look for other jobs, form associations or other support systems with their compatriots, and if they happen to be non-Muslim or non Saudi-style Muslim, their plight gets worse.

The overwhelming majority of unskilled laborers live in shoddy and unhealthy camps where temperatures can reach 120 degrees in the shade during the scorching Saudi summers. Most expatriates are paid meagerly ($100 to $ 150 a month) and many of them work for months without receiving any financial compensation, depending on the mood of their employers since there are no labor laws to protect them from gross injustices and abuses.

For house maids, things get uglier. They are under their employers’ disposal 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Like other unskilled laborers, they are paid very little and expected to perform a variety of jobs including entertaining adult males in the households where they work. These are facts that foreign and some courageous Saudi men and women reporters and human right activists have written about. While Dr. Al-Zamil’s castigation of his country men and women for their maltreatment of expatriates is to be applauded, smiling won’t change the negative image the Saudis (not the global media) have efficiently and successfully created for themselves.



Read More from Arab News

The Spread of Wahhabi Ideology in Boston

This is a scary article.

This op-ed from The Boston Globe reports on the opening of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury. This center was funded by the Saudis.

In the guise of diversity and moderation, the center will allow the spread of Wahhabi extremism and the promotion of the values of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet city officials and the public refuse to accept the reality of the backers of the center and their ominous motives. Check out this article for more facts and frightening evidence.