Shopping for a Spine Butcher

Director’s Comment: A presiding Saudi judge is shopping around for a hospital, willing to cut a sentenced man’s spine in half in accordance with Islam’s Shariah law, practiced in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is the birth place of Islam and home to the religion’s holy shrines, that 1.5 billion Muslims face and pray towards five times a day. The Judge (Saoud bin Suleiman Al-Youssef), from Tabuk has been searching for a hospital that would agree to destroy the spine of Abdul-Aziz Al-Mutairi, aged 22, who was convicted of damaging another man’s spine in a fight two years ago. According to the attached article, the brother of the injured man said that his family “…would be ready to send the attacker abroad to perform the operation if it were not possible in the Kingdom”.

Human rights groups and even Saudi newspapers have documented accounts of Saudi courts, which have ordered for individuals to have their teeth smashed, their eyes pocked, limbs and heads chopped off, in the designated “chop chop” public squares. The latter is a common ritual after Friday prayers in Saudi Arabia.

It would only take a Royal Decree, not only to put an end to arbitrary Saudi court abuses, but to reform Islam to make it compatible with globalization, democracy and modern living. A great deal of resentment by non-Muslims and Muslims is directed toward the way Saudis practice and use Islam as a tool of oppression, discrimination, incitement and intolerance of other beliefs and their adherents.

The question is: why should Muslims be surprised, incensed or feel the world does not understand Islam, if the practices of stoning women to death or beheading Muslims who open up to other beliefs, persists?

What should the US Government do about cases like this and others, such as the gang-raped 19 year old Saudi woman Bint Al-Qatief, who was sentenced to flogging for being seen sitting in a car with a man not related to her? Nothing, said former national security advisor Fran Townsend, during an interview on CNN. Ms. Townsend is now a partner at former Secretary of State James Baker’s law firm, with an office in Saudi Arabia. Read article

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/19/ap/middleeast/main6786959.shtml

Saudi Human Rights Abuses in the Name of Fighting Terrorism

The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia has been highlighting the rampant miscarriage of justice in Saudi Arabia for years. The Saudi judicial system is based on the Shariah law, which does not recognize civil law and can easily be interpreted by the Saudi sectarian court system as presiding religious judges see fit.

In the past few weeks, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have released extensive reports on Saudi human rights abuses in the name of fighting terrorism.

Saudi Arabia has held more than 9,000 people related to terrorism charges since 2003 and announced plans to try only a portion (less than 1000) of the detainees in October 2008. Since then, little information about the trials has been made available, including the names of prisoners to be tried and whether they will have access to a lawyer. Amnesty International reports that those who have gone to trial have been subject to “grossly unfair and secret proceedings.” The legal limit for imprisonment without trial in Saudi Arabia is six months.

Some prisoners have been tried and have completed their sentences, yet continue to be held indefinitely. Other prisoners are forced to undergo religious reeducation in place of trials.

Saudi Arabia lacks a penal code and instead relies on Shariah law. Without specified criminal offenses, the judiciary has wide powers to impose brutal sentences, including the death penalty, and follow various interpretations of the religious law.

This denial of human rights, by denying trials to thousands of prisoners, setting up unjust, underground trials for a few, and imposing religious counseling should be condemned. The Saudi royal family should recognize the necessity for immediate judicial reform and begin to resolve this abusive situation by releasing detainees held beyond the legal six months and providing fair, public trials with impartial sentences.

Read the report from Human Rights Watch: Human Rights and Saudi Arabia's Counterterrorism Response and an overview of the report.

Read Amnesty International's report: Saudi Arabia: Assaulting Human Rights in the Name of Counter-Terrorism and coverage from The New York Times.

Saudi Bloggers

Here are some interesting links to blogs written by actual Saudis.

Saudiwoman's Weblog has written about important issues including child brides, the religious police, and the difficulty of finding a job as a Saudi woman. She is a married woman who teaches at a university in Riyadh.

In the Making has posted about sex segregation, the ban on female drivers, and the overall difficulty and humiliation of a female adult living in Riyadh.

KhanSerai talks about sex segregation, Saudis using Twitter, and the need for reform in Saudi Arabia.

A female journalist living in Jeddah writes about the Saudi educational system, Saudi women being denied the right to vote, and analyses politics relating to the Middle East from a female, Arab point of view at Sabria's Out of the Box.

Khaled's Ramblings talks about technology from a Saudi perspective.

A Bangladeshi living in Saudi Arabia writes about the difficulty of daily life in the kingdom and comments on the religious police at LifeInTheDesert.

At The Ramblings of a Saudi Wife, a female Saudi blogger writes about sex segregation, and the problems of a judicial system that allows physical abuse of children and females.

A Courageous Saudi Blogger languishes in Saudi Prison

When the courageous and well known Saudi blogger, Fouad Al-Farhan, was arrested on December 11^th, 2007, by Prince Naif’s Ministry of Interior, many Saudis knew it was because he had posted blogs demanding reforms in Saudi Arabia. Another belief is that his arrest was the immediate result of his refusal to retract some of his blog posts criticizing Saudi officials. Although the government denied these allegations, it has become clear that Fouad’s criticism and demands were what led to his unjustified and arbitrary arrest, because no other charges have been brought against him.

The Al-Farhan case is similar to those of other courageous Saudi citizens, who called on and petitioned their government for democratic reforms and political inclusion. Prominent among Saudi reformers who faced the same fate as Al-Farhan are poet and author Al-Doumaini, and doctors Al-Faleh and Al-Hamid. They, too, were rounded and thrown in Saudi penitentiary cells for over a year, and when pardoned by King Abdullah after he inherited the throne in August of 2005, they were forbidden to travel, talk to the media, or find jobs.

Fouad Al Farhan is considered to be the godfather of Saudi blogging. He is widely respected for sharing his views and ideas about certain values that he believes the citizens of Saudi Arabia should be entitled to, like the rest of the world. However, since his arrest, Al Farhan has been subjected to treacherous conditions. Aside from one exception on February 12^th, Al-Farhan’s family has been denied visitations and phone calls for the past three months. This is indicative that Al-Farhan is enduring tortuous interrogation, with the hope that he might confess to false allegations that the government has placed against him, such as spying for the CIA and complying with Zionist agencies and terrorist organizations.

This is the method used by Saudi authorities to silence any critique against them and to terrorize anyone who might be aspiring to make the same demands as Al-Farhan, notably to ask for accountability, transparency, rule of law, an independent judicial system, women’s rights, minority rights, privileges for expatriates, and respect for other people’s beliefs. The international community, especially the United States, has moral and practical obligations to demand that Al-Farhan be released, or at least that an open trial be held in a court of non-religious law, with the presence of a defense attorney. The Saudi-Wahhabi ruling elites should not be allowed to transgress international declarations on human rights, especially when they have signed them.

Source:

http://www.arabnews.com/services/print/print.asp?artid=107122&d=24&m=2&y=2008&hl=Blogger’s%20Family%20Urges%20Authorities%20to%20Allow%20Prison%20Visits