Tag: Saudi Arabia

The pictures of Pompeo grinning, smiling, and laughing with the crown prince—as if a journalist wasn't just murdered—are remarkable. Not only is it bad policy; it's downright embarrassing. It makes Pompeo look like an unserious pushover. It's really indefensible on any grounds pic.twitter.com/qwgs9LK9VH

— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) October 16, 2018

Carol Morello at the Post:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came to Saudi Arabia to highlight U.S. concern over the fate of Jamal Khashoggi, the missing journalist whose name Pompeo did not utter in public after arriving in the kingdom.

Pompeo’s talks with three officials, including the king and crown prince, were “direct and frank” about the need to investigate what happened to Khashoggi, said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

But the cameras that recorded the officials’ small talk ahead of the private meetings captured smiles and pleasantries, giving no hint that relations between the two countries are in crisis over Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Well you wouldn’t want Pompeo to make the nice prince mad would you.

During Pompeo’s first trip as secretary of state in April, the crown prince kept him waiting several hours for an appointment because he was presiding over the groundbreaking of an entertainment center. On Tuesday, Pompeo returned to his hotel for an hour as his aides awaited a call that Mohammed was ready to see him.

Pompeo smiled as he sat down in a chair next to Mohammed, who asked: “How was your trip? I hope you don’t have jet lag.”

Pompeo predicted he would feel the time-zone difference in a little while and expressed his gratitude for the meeting. “Thank you for hosting me,” he said.

Wow! So direct, so frank. I bet MBS was all of a tremble.

Pompeo flew to Riyadh to express U.S. concern over Khashoggi's disappearance and apparent murder. But cameras captured lots of smiles and pleasantries among Pompeo and Saudi leaders, @cmorellowp reports https://t.co/rX6UT8zuqy

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) October 16, 2018

https://twitter.com/observeconflict/status/1052167040188977154

Pompeo met with MBS in Saudi Arabia today.

This photo op was a choice.

A choice that sends a signal to the world:

“Assassinate perceived dissidents with impunity. This administration will smile by your side.” pic.twitter.com/sE8313t4MO

— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) October 16, 2018

Saudi Arabia is simply furious that Canada’s Foreign Minister had the audacity to say SA shouldn’t arrest human rights activists.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said the kingdom was still “considering additional measures” against Canada. He did not elaborate.

“There is nothing to mediate. A mistake has been made and a mistake should be corrected,” he told a news conference in Riyadh.

Several countries have expressed support for Saudi Arabia, including Egypt and Russia, which both told Ottawa it was unacceptable to lecture the kingdom on human rights.

Yes, that’s unacceptable all right. Violations of human rights are just fine, in fact they’re glorious, but lecturing states about human rights, that is totally unacceptable.

Hey, any countries out there want to criticize the US on human rights? Please do. Criticize us for our massive rate of incarceration, for tearing children away from their parents at border crossings, for the death penalty, for union-busting, for escalating gun violence, for bad public schools.

“We have always said that the politicisation of human rights matters is unacceptable,” Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, told reporters on Wednesday.

Yes well they would, wouldn’t they, working in Putin’s authoritarian regime.

Meanwhile, the United States – one of Canada’s closest allies – has so far refused to wade into the row.

“It’s up for the government of Saudi Arabia and the Canadians to work this out,” said Heather Nauert, a spokesperson for the state department, on Tuesday. “Both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can’t do it for them.”

Because Trump and his administration could not care less about human rights in Saudi Arabia…or anywhere else, for that matter.

[T]he kingdom has continued to announce measures against Canada, including urgent plans to remove tens of thousands of Saudi students and an unspecified number of medical patients from Canada.

Saudi Arabia’s state airline said it would suspend flights to and from Canada, starting next week.

Saudi Arabia’s main state wheat buying agency, the Saudi Grains Organization, has also told grains exporters it will no longer accept Canadian-origin grains in its international purchase tenders, according to European traders.

Most of this sounds as if it’s more damaging to them than to Canada. “We’ll show you, we’ll take away our students and our medical patients!”

I think this whole thing is long overdue; the US and many of its allies have been turning a blind eye to the tyrannical obscurantist mess that is Saudi Arabia for way too long.

Trump’s BFF Saudi Arabia is not behaving well.

The UN has expressed concern over the continuing and “apparently arbitrary” crackdown on Saudi human rights activists after two more prominent female campaigners were arrested in the kingdom.

Samar Badawi, an internationally recognised activist, and Nassima al-Sadah, a co-founding member of Al-Adalah Center for Human Rights, were detained earlier this week.

At least 15 prominent activists have been held as part of a government campaign that began in the run-up to the much publicised lifting of the ban on women driving. Many other cases are thought to remain unreported.

That’s interesting – so the “run-up” to the removal of one violation of women’s rights consisted of trashing other women’s rights. How does that work? Is there some principle of nature that Saudi Arabia has to keep the number of women’s rights below a certain threshold, so that if it restores one it has to take away others? “You wanna be allowed to drive, bitches? Ok then, we’re busting some of you. Enjoy your rides.”

Khalid Ibrahim, executive director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, said the crackdown was unprecedented.

“When you describe the human rights situation in other countries you say the space for civil society is shrinking. In Saudi Arabia there is no civic space left to shrink. They are putting every peaceful voice behind bars,” he said. “If you are a human rights defender you will be treated worse than a criminal.”

But that, remember, is the majority-Muslim country that Trump thinks is just wonderful and a friend and not at all a source of theocratic murderers.

Badawi, a recipient of the International Women of Courage award, was a prominent figure in the call to end the driving ban for women, a landmark reform passed in June and credited to Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Al-Sadah was barred from standing as a candidate in local elections in 2015, the first year in which women were allowed to run.

Both al-Sadah and Badawi had challenged the country’s male guardianship system, which requires women to obtain permission from their fathers, brothers, husbands or even sons for a range of basic life decisions.

How dare they expect to be treated as adults and equals?

More than 30 human rights groups have warned of a growing climate of fear among female campaigners in both Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

In a recent open letter to the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, the groups wrote: “Saudi authorities, government-aligned media, and troll accounts on social media launched a public smear campaign and labelled women human rights defenders as ‘traitors’ and a ‘danger to Saudi society and national security.’”

I guess that explains why Trump admires them.

Oh no, it’s the end of the world, a woman went out in public wearing clothes.

The authorities in Saudi Arabia are investigating a young woman who posted a video of herself wearing a miniskirt and crop-top in public.

The woman, a model called “Khulood”, shared the clip of her walking around a historic fort in Ushayqir.

https://twitter.com/50BM_/status/886614068768976897

No wonder the authorities are investigating.

On Monday, the Okaz newspaper reported that officials in Ushayqir had called on the provincial governor and police to take action against the woman.

The religious police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, meanwhile wrote on Twitter that it had been made aware of the video and was in contact with the relevant authorities.

Trump’s dear friends.

Some people in Saudi Arabia think a woman who goes outside with naked hair should be killed. Killed.

A woman in Saudi Arabia pictured without a hijab is facing calls for her execution.

Some social media users reacted with outrage after the emergence of the image taken in capital city Riyadh, with one man calling for the state to “kill her and throw her corpse to the dogs”.

Not for murder or torture or abuse or otherwise harming others – but for not wearing a black tent that conceals everything but her eyes.

An unnamed student who reposted the image told the website that Ms Al Shehri had announced she was going out to breakfast without either a hijab or abaya; a traditional Saudi body covering.

The student said she started receiving death threats after posting proof in response to followers who had asked to see a photo.

She got so many threats she deleted the tweets, but she still got more, so she deleted her account.

A hashtag which translates into English as “we demand the imprisonment of the rebel Angel Al Shehri” subsequently went viral.

One user wrote “we propose blood”, while another demanded a “harsh punishment for the heinous situation”.

Despite the outrage, many more users in Saudi Arabia came out in support of the woman’s actions.

Religion: teaching people to be hateful for thousands of years.

The New York Times put out a call on Twitter for Saudi women to talk about their lives. They got a huge response.

Most of the responses focused on frustration over guardianship rules that force women to get permission from a male relative — a husband, father, brother or even son — to do things like attend college, travel abroad, marry the partner of their choice or seek medical attention. Some women talked about the pride they had in their culture and expressed great distrust of outsiders. But many of them shared a deep desire for change and echoed Juju19’s hopelessness.

A Life Restricted

“I got into an accident once in a taxi, and the ambulance refused to take me to the hospital until my male guardian arrived. I had lost a lot of blood. If he didn’t arrive that minute, I would’ve been dead by now.” — RULAA, 19

Riyadh

“Every time I want to travel, I have to tell my teenage son to allow me.”

— SARAH, 42

a doctor in Riyadh

“My sister went to a bookstore without taking permission from her husband, and when she returned, he beat her up without restraint.”

— AL QAHTANIYA, 28

…

“He won’t allow me to work, even though I need the money. He also doesn’t provide all my needs. I can’t recall the last time he cared about what I needed or wanted. He is married to four women and completely preoccupied with them, and he doesn’t allow me to travel with my mother. I suffer a lot, even in my social life. He controls it completely and doesn’t allow me to have friends over or go to them. He forces me to live according to his beliefs and his religion. I can’t show my true self. I live in a lie just so that I wouldn’t end up getting killed.” — DINA, 21

Riyadh

…

“I’ve had to give up on a number of educational opportunities because he (my guardian) didn’t think a doctor needed a cultural exchange program or a symposium he didn’t understand. I’ve been trying to have him let me marry the man I love for the past two years.

“I’m in charge of people’s lives every day, but I can’t have my own life the way I want.” — A. M., 30

a doctor in Jidda

There are some who say it’s all fine, women are protected, it’s lovely.

Via #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship on Twitter –

Fascist theocratic Saudi Arabia is having good success in making over Kosovo in its own hideous image. They’ve funded the building of scores of Wahhabi mosques since Kosovo was rescued from Serbian oppression in the 90s.

Since then — much of that time under the watch of American officials — Saudi money and influence have transformed this once-tolerant Muslim society at the hem of Europe into a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists.

Kosovo now finds itself, like the rest of Europe, fending off the threat of radical Islam. Over the last two years, the police have identified 314 Kosovars — including two suicide bombers, 44 women and 28 children — who have gone abroad to join the Islamic State, the highest number per capita in Europe.

They were radicalized and recruited, Kosovo investigators say, by a corps of extremist clerics and secretive associations funded by Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab gulf states using an obscure, labyrinthine network of donations from charities, private individuals and government ministries.

And yet the Saudis hate Islamic State, because they want to be the khilafah themselves. They don’t seem to be going about this very thoughtfully.

After the war, United Nations officials administered the territory and American forces helped keep the peace. The Saudis arrived, too, bringing millions of euros in aid to a poor and war-ravaged land.

But where the Americans saw a chance to create a new democracy, the Saudis saw a new land to spread Wahhabism.

“There is no evidence that any organization gave money directly to people to go to Syria,” Mr. Makolli said. “The issue is they supported thinkers who promote violence and jihad in the name of protecting Islam.”

They just don’t think it through, do they. Train people in Wahhabism and then watch stupidly as they ally with rivals instead of the Saudis.

Kosovo now has over 800 mosques, 240 of them built since the war and blamed for helping indoctrinate a new generation in Wahhabism. They are part of what moderate imams and officials here describe as a deliberate, long-term strategy by Saudi Arabia to reshape Islam in its image, not only in Kosovo but around the world.

Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2015 reveal a system of funding for mosques, Islamic centers and Saudi-trained clerics that spans Asia, Africa and Europe. In New Delhi alone, 140 Muslim preachers are listed as on the Saudi Consulate’s payroll.

This is very unfortunate. Whether it results in lots more Wahhabism or lots more ISism or lots more freelance murderous Islamism, or all three, it will mean lots more violent reckless humanity-hating theocracy in the world, and that’s bad. Very, very bad. There’s nothing good about Wahhabism; not one thing.

All around Kosovo, families are grappling with the aftermath of years of proselytizing by Saudi-trained preachers. Some daughters refuse to shake hands with or talk to male relatives. Some sons have gone off to jihad. Religious vigilantes have threatened — or committed — violence against academics, journalists and politicians.

It’s nightmare world. It’s the handmaid’s tale.

How Kosovo and the very nature of its society was fundamentally recast is a story of a decades-long global ambition by Saudi Arabia to spread its hard-line version of Islam — heavily funded and systematically applied, including with threats and intimidation by followers.

And yet Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US and the UK and Canada. It’s suicidal.

The article goes on to give a lot of detail. It will turn your hair white.

News from Saudi Arabia, where “morality police” tell girls to cover their faces and beat them up if they don’t obey fast enough.

Manama: One of the two girls who had a bitter standoff with the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the religious police, in Riyadh said they had been the victims of “blatant injustice.”

A video clip of a woman being beaten up in front of the Nakheel Mall in Riyadh sparked outrage in Saudi Arabia this week amid contrasting reports about what really took place.

The article has the video but it’s just a note from YouTube:

This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s policy on harassment and bullying.

No, YouTube, the video documents bullying by Saudi officials, so removing it is not helpful.

Another source has a not-yet-banned version:

https://youtu.be/A6DlHxe7D-I

The girl said that she was walking with her friend in front of the mall looking for a taxi when they were stopped by a Commission patrol.

One of the men asked the two to cover their faces, but the girls initially resisted the order. However, they acquiesced when they saw the man getting off the car and approaching them, she said, Al Hayat daily reported.

“The Commission member asked us if we were students or employees, and wanted to take us into the vehicle,” the girl said. “However, as we realised [there was a] large number of Commission members, we refused and insisted that they call our families. However, the Commission member did not listen and he and others tried to pull us inside the van by force,” she said.

The girl managed to flee into the mall even though the Commission member was shouting to the guards to stop and apprehend her.

“They [guards] did not obey him and I was able to escape. My friend ran away towards the main avenue, and everybody saw on social media what happened to her. She was eventually kept away from the Commission members and put on a bus that took her home. She was in a terrible state. The Commission took her bag and some of her belongings, but she managed to keep the mobile phone that they wanted to wrestle out of her hand,” she said.

Girls aren’t allowed to leave their prisons in Saudi Arabia.

Ashraf Fayadh’s death sentence has been overturned, but he still faces prison and torture. This is what the Saudis do – they say oh all right, if you’re going to get that upset, we won’t kill the liberal guy, the Sri Lankan woman who had sex, the guy who wrote poetry, we’ll just lock them up for years and years and maybe torture them too.

A Saudi court has overturned the death sentence of a Palestinian poet accused of renouncing Islam, imposing an eight-year prison term and 800 lashes instead. He must also repent through an announcement in official media.

Saudi Arabia, where the state religion is absolutely mandatory, on pain of torture, prison and death. Saudi Arabia, that prides itself on living according to its state religion, which kills people for attempting to escape it.

Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “Instead of beheading Ashraf Fayadh, a Saudi court has ordered a lengthy imprisonment and flogging. No one should face arrest for peacefully expressing opinions, much less corporal punishment and prison. Saudi justice officials must urgently intervene to vacate this unjust sentence.”

The author Irvine Welsh said: “When this twisted barbarism is thought of as a compromise, it’s way past time western governments stopped dealing with this pervert regime.”

Exactly. South Africa was a pariah state. Why isn’t Saudi Arabia a pariah state? Is it just so that we can keep driving our giant cars?

The death sentence imposed in November provoked a worldwide outcry.

Hundreds of leading authors, artists and actors, including the director of Tate Modern, Chris Dercon, the British poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and actor Helen Mirren, have appealed for his release. More than 60 international arts and human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the writers’ association PEN International, have launched a campaign calling on the Saudi authorities and western governments to save him. Readings of his poetry in support of his case took place in 44 countries last week.

Jo Glanville, the director of English PEN, which appealed for Fayadh’s release, said: “It is a relief that Ashraf Fayadh no longer faces execution, but this is a wholly disproportionate and shocking sentence. It will cause dismay around the world for all Ashraf’s many supporters. The charges against him should have been dropped and he should be a free man today. We will continue to campaign for his release.”

A god that won’t let us leave is a kidnapper and an enslaver. Fuck that god.

Seen on Twitter:

Many public places in Saudi Arabia are closed to women. Some have segregated “family” areas, and some don’t; women by themselves are not welcome.

We understand why, of course. We’re not stupid. It’s because if they’re out by themselves they’re sure to fuck the first male they see, and disgrace the men of their family.

The Independent reports:

A government minister has urged Saudi Arabia to do a “better job” of trumpeting its human rights successes during an official visit to the country, less than a month after it carried out the mass execution of 47 people.

Tobias Ellwood, the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, made the comments on Monday as he and other British delegates addressed Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights in the capital Riyadh, The Independent understands.

Its what? Trumpeting its what? Trumpeting its what successes? Trumping its human rights what?

Saudi Arabia doesn’t have any fucking human rights “successes.” Saudi Arabia doesn’t believe in human rights, because it thinks human beings are slaves before Allah and Mohammed. Saudi Arabia wants nothing to do with human rights, because it’s run by one extremely rich family who grabbed power a few decades ago and don’t intend to give it up. Saudi Arabia hates human rights, because the house of Saud depends on the Wahhabi clerics in order to keep its stranglehold on power.

How dare a UK government minister give Saudi Arabia advice on how to pretend it gives a fuck about human rights?

During the visit, which was not publicised by the Foreign Office, Mr Ellwood was told that Saudi Arabia had introduced a series of reforms, such as allowing women to vote in municipal elections.

In response, he told his hosts that they needed to improve the way they promoted their human rights successes, according to people present at the meeting.

So the FO sent someone completely ignorant of the Saudi way with human rights to Saudi Arabia? Why?

Accounts of the meeting that appeared in three Saudi media outlets claimed that Mr Ellwood went even further, saying that people in Britain were unaware of the “notable progress” made on human rights by the Saudi regime.

An article in the daily newspaper Al Watan read: “Tobias Ellwood revealed the ignorance of the British to the notable progress in Saudi Arabia in the field of human rights, confirming throughout the visit of a British FCO delegation… that he had expressed his opinion regarding the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia before the British Parliament, and that the notable progress in this area has been obscured.”

Tell that to Raif Badawi. Tell it to Waleed Abulkhair. Tell it to the Sri Lankan domestic servant who was sentenced to stoning to death for having sex outside marriage. Tell it to the entire female population of Saudi Arabia.

Maya Foa, of the human rights organisation Reprieve, added: “These comments are astonishing. The Saudi authorities have a bad reputation on human rights because of their appalling human rights record – not because of bad PR.”

And as long as that’s the case, we don’t want them to improve their PR.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir talked to Channel 4 News’ Jonathan Rugman, who wondered why the kingdom had to execute quite so many people.

Al-Jubeir responded: “We have a fundamental difference, in your country, you do not execute people, we respect it. In our country, the death penalty is part of our laws and you have to respect this as it is the law.”

No we don’t. Nobody does. Nobody has to “respect” other countries’ laws just because they’re laws. (They have to obey them while in those countries, but that’s a different thing.) Shit laws don’t merit respect.

People don’t have to respect US laws on capital punishment either, by the way. I don’t respect them, lots of us don’t respect them, and non-Americans are entirely free to say they’re shit.

We don’t have to respect the Saudi death penalty and we sure as hell don’t have to respect the grounds on which it decides to kill people. Like that Sri Lankan domestic servant who was sentenced to stoning to death for having sex: I’m not going to respect that. It’s horrific and indefensible. Saudi Arabia should be a pariah state.

In the Channel 4 interview, Al-Jubeir said his country had to do more to address its bad reputation in the UK.

“With regards to the perception of Saudi Arabia among the British public, this is a problem that we need to work on. We have not been good at explaining ourselves,” he said.

“We have not done a good job at reaching out to the British media or the British public or to the British institutions, academic institutions, think tanks and so forth. We maybe not have been as communicative as we should be.”

No no no. That’s not it. Forget that. It doesn’t matter how you spin it or frame it or mark it with a b; it’s still what it is.

Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at international human rights organisation Reprieve said: “2015 saw Saudi Arabia execute over 150 people, many of them for non-violent offences. Today’s appalling news, with nearly 50 executed in a single day, suggests 2016 could be even worse.

“Alarmingly, the Saudi Government is continuing to target those who have called for domestic reform in the kingdom, executing at least four of them today.

“There are now real concerns that those protesters sentenced to death as children could be next in line to face the swordsman’s blade.”

No amount of PR is going to fix that.