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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Women: "I Will Drive Myself Starting June 17"
![[Image from unknown archive.]](/content_images/3/sm_womendriversksa.jpg "[Image from unknown archive.]")
[The following announcement was originally released in Arabic, and can be found here. Translation by Ziad Abu-Rish and Khuloud.] Us women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are the ones who will lead this society towards change. While we failed to deliver through our voices, we will not fail to deliver through our actions. We have been silent and under the mercy of our guardian (muhram) or foreign driver for too long. Some of us barely make ends meet and cannot even afford cab fare. Some of us are the heads of households yet have no source of income except for a few hard-earned [Saudi] Riyals that are used to pay drivers. Then there are those of us who do not have a muhram ...
Keep Reading »Declaration of Municipal Elections Boycott by Group of Saudi Writers and Intellectuals
![[Provinces of Saudi Arabia. Image from mena-electionguide.org]](/content_images/3/sm_ksaksaksa.jpg "[Provinces of Saudi Arabia. Image from mena-electionguide.org]")
[The following statement was recently released in Arabic by a group of Saudi writers and intellectuals in regards to the upcoming municipal elections in the Kingdom. The Saudi Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs announced on March 22, 2011, that municipal elections would be held on September 22, 2011. Translation by Ziad Abu-Rish. The Arabic version of the statement can be found here.] Announcement of Boycott of the Saudi Municipal Elections After the experience of the 2005 municipal elections and the postponement--without explanation--of the elections that were supposed to be held in 2009, it was announced that municipal elections would be held by the end of this ...
Keep Reading »الهيمنة السعودية تسحق الربيع البحريني [Saudi Hegemony Stamps Out the Bahraini Spring]
![[العلم البحريني. المصدر غير معروف]](/content_images/3/sm_BahrainFlag.jpg "[العلم البحريني. المصدر غير معروف]")
في اليوم الذي هدمت فيه السلطات البحرينية دوار اللؤلؤة الذي صار بمثابة "ميدان تحرير" البحرين في ١٨ آذار/مارس، أعلنت وكالات الأنباء البحرينية التابعة للدولة للجمهور الحائر بأن "معلم مجلس التعاون الخليجي" قد هدم في مساع تهدف الى "إجراء عملية تجميل لوجه المدينة" وذلك من أجل التخلص من "الذكريات السيئة." ومن بين الأنقاض، صار من الواضح ان الرمز الذي يعرف محلياً "بدوار اللؤلوة" في إشارة الى تأريخ البحرين في الغطس والتجارة باللؤلؤ يدعى رسمياً "دوار مجلس التعاون الخليجي" - حيث يمثل كل عمود من البناء المهدم عضواً من أعضاء مجلس "التعاون." وفي الوقت عينه، وفي مناطق سترة وكرانة، دفن حشد من المعزين ...
Keep Reading »The Saudi Women Revolution Statement
![[Image from Mona Kareem's Blog]](/content_images/3/sm_13.jpg "[Image from Mona Kareem's Blog]")
[The following statement in English and Arabic (below) was written by Mona Kareem on Friday March 18th, 2011, and can be found on her personal blog.] After the recent importance of Social Media in creating change in our societies, a lot of Saudi women have been active on Twitter through the hash tag #SaudiWomenRevoltion to write their demands of applying social equality in Saudi society, giving examples and telling stories on the injustice they are facing in their society. Media has talked about this hash tag but did not care to push this cause forward. Saudi Women, however, have created a page for their revolution on Facebook and talked to several media means to ...
Keep Reading »Darker Than Black Tuesday [Notes From the Bahraini Field- Update 6]
![[Bahrainis protesting at Saudi Embassy in Manama. Image from washingtontimes.com]](/content_images/3/sm_Mideast_Bahrain_Prote_Lea_s640x473.jpg "[Bahrainis protesting at Saudi Embassy in Manama. Image from washingtontimes.com]")
Amid an atmosphere of extreme tension a number of Asian men, mostly from Pakistan, have reportedly been attacked with swords and iron rods during the last two days. The government seems to have taken up their cause to point blame at opposition protesters although as of yet the circumstances in which they were attacked, and who attacked them are not clear. The men attacked were all civilian residents who have in the past borne the brunt of anti-government sentiment. Mostly Pakistanis, they are often recruited by the hundreds into Bahrain's security forces, their citizenship fast tracked and social benefits guaranteed. They are then used in riot police squads to mete out ...
Keep Reading »Meeting Slogans With Gunfire: Saudi Security Forces Use Live Ammunition Against Protesters (Video)
![[Demonstrators in Qatif. Image from independent.co.uk]](/content_images/3/sm_Pg-09-Saudi-Arabia_574986a.jpg "[Demonstrators in Qatif. Image from independent.co.uk]")
On the eve of Saudi Arabia's "Day of Rage," country-wide protests planned for Friday March 11, 200-300 protesters took to the streets in the city of Qatif, located in the eastern province of the Kingdom. Participants chanted a range of slogans, inlcuding "peaceful, peaceful" and "freedom, freedom, for the prisoners, freedom." Various media outlets have confirmed the use of live amunition to disperse demonstrators. Reports of at least three people injured have already been confirmed. The White House did not make any statements beyond acknowledging that it had received reports of live gunshots being used to disperse protesters in the ...
Keep Reading »Demands of Saudi Youth For the Future of the Nation
![[Image from mideastposts.com]](/content_images/3/sm_blogs.jpg "[Image from mideastposts.com]")
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Our precious country is experiencing a relative openness in different fields, and we can feel the tireless efforts of reform in religious, social, and economic areas and organizations, all of which seek to meet the demands of the people. However, we find that the reforms are still far from achieving what we hope for, and what this diverse nation- especially young people- needs and aspires to. Us young Saudi men and women have our own aspirations for the future of this country in terms of development and prosperity in the fields of scientific and cultural development, as well as in the ...
Keep Reading »Gathering to Protest: Videos from Saudi Arabia
![[Anti-riot police standoff with protesters. Image from Rasid.com]](/content_images/3/sm_Anti-RiotPoliceStandoffwithProtesters.ImagefromRasid.com.jpg "[Anti-riot police standoff with protesters. Image from Rasid.com]")
The $35 billion question for the last month has been whether the recent wave of protests that erupted across the Arab world, from its far west in Morocco to US-occupied Iraq in the east, will reach the Saudi Kingdom. Today, Friday March 4, 2011, witnessed two small protests, one in the capital city Riyadh, the other in the al-Ahsa in the Eastern Province. These are not the first signs of protest in Saudi Arabia since the Egypt ian revolution succeeded in ousting Mubarak. There have been several other small protests at government buildings in different Saudi cities, all of which demanded an end to corruption, reforming labor laws, creating jobs, and releasing ...
Keep Reading »Agency and Its Discontents: Between Al Saud's Paternalism and the Awakening of Saudi Youth
Public life has been calmer than usual in Saudi Arabia for the last month. Invigorated by the people’s revolutionary movements in Tunisia and Egypt and anxious about the increasing violence in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen, Saudis have been following the news obsessively, perhaps for the first time in a decade. Salon talk has also shifted to serious discussions of the less than ideal role the Saudi government has played in the historic regional developments we are witnessing today. Within these discussions, predictions of what will happen next in Saudi Arabia vary, but all agree that the future course of events rests on what King Abdullah will do upon his return. In this ...
Keep Reading »Celebrations Shake Saudi Capital
![[Image from unknown archive]](/content_images/3/sm_President-barack-obama-with-King-Abdullah-of-Saudi-Arabia.jpg "[Image from unknown archive]")
Tonight, We Are All Egyptian. For the first time in decades, Arabs the world over will unite in celebration, not in protest against this imperial war or the next. We will dwell in victory, not in the shadows of yesteryear’s defeats. We will pontificate the future and its many possibilities, not arguments against the mere idea of “what went wrong.” For some time to come, we will see Egyptians for the heroes that they are, and ignore that their laborers will continue to inhabit the lowest scales of human hierarchy in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Lebanon. Tonight, we will forget all our differences and prejudices, and rejoice publicly to show the ...
Keep Reading »Democracy Now! Interview with Toby Jones on Saudi Arabia
This is an interview conducted with Toby Jones on Friday, April 6, in regards to the Saudi regime's response to calls for reform both in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The interview addresses the recent events in both kingdoms, highlighting the role of oil wealth and US foreign policy. It also discusses the possible impact of the recently announced killing of Usam Bin Ladin. Transcripts of the interview follow the below video. Saudi Arabia—the oil rich kingdom that is the birthplace and former home of Osama ...
Keep Reading »What is Sharia?
This question has animated scholarly, religious, and political debates for centuries. These debates have been lively, at times contentious, and have been held (under different circumstances and leading to different results) in different parts of the Muslim majority world as well as in parts of the world with few, if any, Muslims. More recently, it seems that the question “What is sharia?” has become a pressing concern in Western countries with growing Muslim minorities who continue to be unevenly ...
Keep Reading »Saudi Hegemony vs. the Arab Spring
The day the Bahraini authorities demolished the Pearl monument at the center of Bahrain’s ‘Tahrir Square’ on March 18th, the state-run Bahrain News Agency announced to a puzzled public that the “GCC monument” had been removed for a “facelift” in order to get rid of "bad memories.” Amidst the rubble, it came to light that the symbol known locally as the ‘Pearl roundabout’ in reference to Bahrain’s pearl diving and trading history was in fact officially known as the “Gulf Cooperative Council ...
Keep Reading »Saudi Arabia's Week of Shame
Since King Abdullah returned to Riyadh last month, members of his ruling family have resorted to myriad political, economic, and personal measures to prevent public expressions of dissent against the Al Saud. The Ministry of Interior issued a statement warning that any act of public protest is prohibited in Saudi Arabia and punishable by law. The country’s senior ulema were quick to legitimize this criminalization of protest with religious justifications, reminding everyone that “conspiring” against the ...
Keep Reading »Different Kinds of Intervention: Groups Respond to GCC Troops Entering Bahrain
Troops from the GCC Peninsula Shield Forces, originating mostly from Saudi Arabia but also the United Arab Emirates, arrived in Bahrain today. When the Bahraini Crown Prince visited Saudi Arabia last week, he was given an ultimatum and a deadline: either the Bahraini government takes control of the situation and ends the month old anti-government protests, or Saudi Arabia would send its troops to do the job. While Bahrain’s ruler did issue an appeal for help to the GCC, critics have said that this was in ...
Keep Reading »The Center or Bust: Will the various forces in Bahrain finally compromise on a centrist approach to power?
The events in Bahrain are most tantalizing. Should the opposition gain some ground and succeed in breaking the 240-year old stranglehold of the al-Khalifa family on the island, it would make Bahrain a beacon of social and political progress in the Gulf. Should they fail and see their movements repressed harshly, presumably with Saudi help, it would nominally keep the al-Khalifas in power but throw the opposition in the arms of a waiting Iran and the rest of the island under Saudi ...
Keep Reading »Saudi Government Forbids Media From Reporting Yesterday's Protests, Issues Warning
The Saudi Ministry of Interior Issued the Following Statement Today: Based on recent attempts to circumvent rules, regulations, and procedures for illegal purposes, and confirming its December 30, 2008 declaration, the security spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior clarified that Saudi laws and regulations strictly prohibit all kinds of demonstrations, marches, protests, or calling for them, as they contradict with Islamic Shari’a principles and the values and customs of Saudi society. They also ...
Keep Reading »A Call From Saudi Intellectuals to the Political Leadership
[The following translation from Arabic is provided by Khuloud] Declaration of National Reform It is no secret that the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have led to crises and political agitations in many Arab countries- at the heart of which is our country. This has imposed new conditions on us to reevaluate our current state of affairs, and do our best to reform them before they worsen and we find ourselves facing consequences we can neither prevent nor predict. A group of Saudi intellectuals ...
Keep Reading »King Abdullah Announces a Discount for Dictators
Two Arab dictators are out of the game, but there are others. Here is a cartoon by Khalil Bendib about possible efforts to accomodate future ex-presidents.
Keep Reading »Saudi Arabia's Silent Protests
Riyadh feels a little less stale since the Tunisian people toppled their dictator-president Zine El Abidine Bin Ali on 15 January 2011. In cafes, restaurants, and salons (majalis), friends and colleagues greet me with a smug smile, congratulations, and a ‘u’balna kulna (may we all be next). On my daily afternoon walks, I overhear Saudis of all ages and walks of life analyzing the events that led to the overthrow of the Tunisian regime. Everywhere I go, people are hypothesizing on whether the same could ...
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