Middle-East-Info.org - Saudi Arabia

A mosque in Rome? Sure. A non-Muslim in Mecca? No. (Jonathan V. Last, Wall Street Journal, Aug 29, 2003): "If you judge by the pictures, the Makkah Hilton is a nice place to stay. There's just one catch, as the Web site notes. The five-star hotel 'is exclusively sited within the Holy City which, by national and religious law, is only accessible to visitors of the Muslim Religion.' This law is something of a singularity among major religions, because it isn't merely the Grand Mosque that is off-limits to nonbelievers, the way, for instance, a Mormon Temple is. It's a city--a major city with hotels, supermarkets, schools and a population of 1.2 million people. (The city of Medina, population 700,000, also forbids non-Muslims.) ... The ban sometimes creates logistical woes. Companies that rely on skilled workers often resort to using auxiliary offices outside the city. Ms. Mackey tells of the building of a hotel designed by a Western architect. The Saudis refused to allow him into the city and, she writes, 'insisted that he stand on a hill outside of town and direct the work through a telescope.' ... But even at the State Department, the ban rankles. 'Every religion needs to have its own freedom of assembly and be able to protect the integrity of its holy places,' said one State Department expert. 'But it's just absurd that it goes to these great lengths. . . . Even if you don't care about lofty ideals like religious freedom or openness, we're starting to see some real connections between religious intolerance and terrorism.'"

Official website of Makkah Hilton Hotel, Saudi Arabia (Aug 30, 2003): "... this hotel is only accessible to visitors of Muslim religion."

Official website of Madinah Hilton Hotel, Saudi Arabia (Aug 30, 2003): "... this hotel is only accessible to visitors of Muslim religion."

Saudi Arabia's Apartheid (Colbert I. King, Washington Post, Dec 22, 2001): "He said he and his wife were amused to read early press reports from Afghanistan about the oppression of women and religious minorities. 'Virtually everything described there was taking place in Saudi Arabia, with the exception that at least the Taliban permitted other religions to exist in their country. This is absolutely forbidden in Saudi Arabia.' .... One of the (still) untold stories, however, is the cooperation of U.S. and other Western companies in enforcing sexual apartheid in Saudi Arabia. McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms, for instance, maintain strictly segregated eating zones in their restaurants. The men's sections are typically lavish, comfortable and up to Western standards, whereas the women's or families' sections are often run-down, neglected and, in the case of Starbucks, have no seats. Worse, these firms will bar entrance to Western women who show up without their husbands. My wife and other [U.S. government affiliated] women were regularly forbidden entrance to the local McDonald's unless there was a man with them."

Saudi population adheres to at least seven religious minorities from Sunni and Shia Islam.
Religious Freedom doesn’t exits for most Saudis belonging to the seven Islamic denominations.
The country witnessed increasing systematic government campaign of intolerance, oppression against the Ismaili minority in Najran. Senior officials engineered unparallel campaign of transfer and ethnic mutilation against Ismailis and Yam tribe.
Over 20 religious leaders, mostly Shia Ismailis and Jafaris remain in prison without trial, in addition to 200 religious prisoners. The longest held prisoner is a Wahhabi religious leader, and the oldest prisoner was a Shia cleric. Both were arrested for their opinions and religious beliefs.
17 religious prisoners face execution or life sentences.
Millions of religious books have been confiscated and burnt by the government.
Several official cleric issued edicts and statements calling of violence against Shia minorities. The incitements materialized into acts of violence and murder against a numbers of the Shia citizens. The acts were perpetrated by the government and some religious extremists.
All media outlets restrict its religious coverage to the Wahhabi understanding of Islam. Other understandings of Islam are barred from all government and private media outlets.
The permanent destruction of Islamic landmarks and historical mosques by the government has continued. The destruction also targeted cultural attributes and social traditions of religious minorities.

Feb 28, 2004: Following protests in the USA, Saudi Arabia has removed from its tourism website the list of those who are ineligible to apply for tourist visas, which included "Jewish People." The original is cached here: Visa Requirements - Saudi Arabia government tourism website, Feb 26, 2004:
"Visas will not be issued for the following groups of people:

Saudi Internet Rules (Council of Ministers Resolution, Feb 12, 2001): "All Internet users in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shall refrain from publishing or accessing data containing some of the following: Anything contravening a fundamental principle or legislation, or infringing the sanctity of Islam and its benevolent Shari’ah, or breaching public decency. Anything contrary to the state or its system. Reports or news damaging to the Saudi Arabian armed forces, without the approval of the competent authorities. Publication of official state laws, agreements or statements before they are officially made public, unless approved by the competent authorities."

"Amnesty International is gravely concerned at reports that 14 girls have lost their lives and dozens of others were injured following a fire at their school in Mecca on 11 March 2002 after the religious police (Mutawa'een) prevented them from escaping from the fire because they were not wearing headscarves and their male relatives were not there to receive them. The religious police are also reported to have prevented rescuers from entering the school because they were males and therefore not permitted to mix with females." - Mar 15, 2002

SAUDI ARABIA: GROSS HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST WOMEN (Amnesty International, Sep 27, 2000): "Discrimination against women impacts upon and compounds the wide range of human rights violations commonly reported in Saudi Arabia. These violations, which have been described in detail in two recent Amnesty International reports on Saudi Arabia, A Justice System Without Justice and A Secret State of Suffering1, include arbitrary arrest and detention as facilitated by the wide-ranging powers enjoyed by the arresting authorities; vague written and unwritten laws; secret and grossly unfair trials; torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; and the use of the death penalty."

Saudi Arabia - Questions of Human Rights (Website of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London): "Q: Why can women not travel freely and alone within Saudi Arabia? A: This phenomena is not limited to Saudi Arabia. This custom prevails in many Muslim countries. There is a religious basis for it: the Prophet Mohamed said that no women should travel for more than one night without her husband or a mahram, for example her father, son or uncle. Some Muslim scholars believe that the Prophet's instruction was based on the unsafe travel conditions of the time. They argue that as travel is no longer risky, that injunction does not apply. However, religious scholars in Saudi Arabia do not accept this interpretation, and neither do the majority of the Saudi people. This is not a matter of government decree; it is a matter of deep personal belief."

THE ORIGINS OF THE "WITCHCRAFT" CHARGE (Human Rights Watch)

The West As An Enemy in Saudi Arabian Schoolbooks (AJC): "Manifestations of the Call for Westernization.
Calling for [male and female] mixing in the spheres of work, education and [other] fields of public life.
Opening dance halls, amusement centers and other types of cheap entertainment.
Abolishing the veil and showing the unveiled [face].
Establishing interest-based banks, encouraging people to conduct interest[-based businesses] and advocating that.
Cramming the markets, radio and television with vulgar stories, literature and songs.
Emulating the Westerners in their holidays: birthdays, Mother's Day, May Day, etc... not to mention the revival of Zoroastrian or ancient holidays such as the Nowruz [Persian New Year's Day] and Shamm al-Nasim [Egyptian Spring Festival].
The tendency among the educated sons of the Arabic language to speak among themselves in a modern European or American language, instead of their own national language, in order to show off the extent of their education.
[The practice of] many well-off Muslim families to send their sons to local missionary schools and colleges, instead of [sending them to] national educational institutions.
Introducing Western political institutions such as [political] parties and parliaments into the Muslim societies, which have resulted in tragedies and fragmentation among sons of the same society.
Biography of the Prophet and History of the Muslim State, Grade 10, (2001) pp. 92-93"

The demonology of SE Asian Islamists (Australian MP Michael Danby, Jerusalem Post, Aug 31, 31, 2003): "Sue and Donna lived in Elwood and Port Melbourne respectively, suburbs in my constituency in Melbourne, where I serve as a federal member of parliament. Sue and Donna were killed whilst enjoying a holiday in Bali, and now Donna leaves behind a disabled four-year-old. As justification for their murderous acts in Bali, two of the known perpetrators, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Imam Samudra, have focused their rhetoric on revenge 'against the Jews,' despite the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, there are no Jews in Indonesia. ... Where European anti-Semites saw the Jews as the sworn enemies of Christianity, the Indonesian anti-Semites see the Jews and Christians as allies. Imam Samudra says the Bali bombing was designed 'to carry out my responsibility to wage global jihad against Jews and Christians throughout the world.' When Samudra was led from court on 26 June, he yelled: 'Destroy Christians, destroy America, destroy Jews!' ... Poor Indonesian youth are attending religious schools (madrassas) and some of them are being indoctrinated by Wahabist preachers funded from Saudi Arabia. The result has been to reconnect Indonesian Islam with the Islamist strand of the Arab world, with its prevalent strains of anti-Western and anti-Semitic ideology."

The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has a force of more than 3,500 men (apparently in the capital alone!!!) who patrol the streets to enforce moral values. The officials can order the arrest and detention of violators or those who resist their instructions. Othman Al-Othman, head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Riyadh, says cafes "negatively affect the morals of youth and lead them to start smoking." Doesn't Saudi Arabia, whence came 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, have bigger moral problems than smoking? Persons convicted of less serious offenses, such as alcohol related offenses or being alone in the company of an unrelated person of the opposite sex, sometimes were punished by caning.

Saudi religious and morality police launch website (MEMRI, May 13, 2003) : "... the arrest of an Asian man belonging to the Sufi sect of Islam who "engaged in witchcraft," a study on the role of the Authority in the struggle against "ideological invasion, ... On the photo, under the heading "The Jewish Doll," is a story titled "The Strange Request." The story reads: "One girl said to her mother: 'Mother, I want jeans and a shirt open at the top, like Barbie's!!' The dolls of the Jewish Barbie in her naked garb [sic], their disgraceful appearance, and their various accessories are a symbol of the dissolution of values in the West. We must fully comprehend the danger in them."

Reuters: Lebanese model Nathaly Fadlallah models the 'Dress of Revolution,' designed by Saudi haute couture designer Yehya al-Bashri. The dress was part of a collection featured at an Arab fashion festival in Beirut on September 17, 2002 to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian uprising against Israel. The dress is covered with faux bloodstains from the waist to the knees, and below the knees it shows an Israeli tank against a background of burning buildings. Reuters, by the way, classifies this as an "entertainment" photo. Needless to say, in Saudi Arabia, the home of the designer, the same woman would be imprisoned as a "prostitute" for daring to dress like that.

Hijab Basics: The Requirements of the Muslim Woman's Dress (The Islamic Garden):
"Muslim women are required in Islam to cover themselves whenever they are outside of their homes or in the presence of non-mahrem men. This provides many benefits to the Muslim woman herself as well as to the society as a whole. Allah willing, I plan on discussing many of these benefits in future articles. This article, however, will simply describe the physical requirements of hijab. My hope is that it will serve as a reference for Muslim women as well as a basic introduction to hijab for non-Muslims. The word hijab is derived from the Arabic root hajaba, which means to hide from view or to conceal. Many people use it to refer to the headscarf which Muslim women wear (as in: I bought this hijab for $10 yesterday), but hijab is much more than a headscarf: it is an entire way of dressing, behaving and believing. It is acceptable to name the scarf hijab so long as it does not lead to the wrong impression that a headscarf is the only requirement of true hijab. After all, anyone can wear a headscarf (gypsies, fashion models, etc.), but it takes much more than that to fufill the conditions of Islamic dress.
1. Proper hijab (concealment for the Muslim woman) dictates that the entire body must be covered, although the face and hands may be exposed. Some women choose to cover themselves further by means of a face veil and gloves, and this is perfectly fine.
2. The clothing must be long and loose-fitting so that the shape of the woman is not outlined in her garments. The preferred coverings include the jelbab and the abaya which are floor-length cloaks which come in various types of fabric and may be worn over a woman's regular house clothing. Pants are unacceptable unless they are worn underneath the outer garments.
3. Garments should not be transparent as to reveal the color of a woman's skin or to expose the hair or body in any way. With regards to the headscarf, it must cover all of the hair and be long enough to cover the woman's ears, neck and chest. Women should take care to ensure that the scarf is securely fastened, usually with pins, and that her hair is arranged so that it will not slip out of her scarf.
4. Colors and styles should be as plain as possible so that unnecessary attention is not drawn to the woman. In addition, the clothing should not be excessively rich and fancy in order to gain admiration nor excessively poor and ragged in order to gain sympathy. Modesty is the main goal.
5. Jewelry must not be displayed, and it is especially important that it does not make noise as a woman walks (an ankle-bracelet with bells, for example). Women in pre-Islamic Arabia used to wear such bracelets and stamp their feet in the markets in order to entice and attract men.
6. The dress should not resemble the garments of men, nor should it imitate the dress of non-Muslims.
7. Make-up (unless it is completely covered by a face-veil) and perfume are strictly prohibited for Muslim women when outdoors or in the presence of non-mahrem men.
8. A Muslim woman who wears hijab should also strive to make her actions consistent with her dress with regards to Islamic guidelines for speech, manners and behavior.
These categories of people, along with the woman's husband, form the group
of allowable escorts for a Muslim woman when she travels: Mahram (other commonly used spellings: Mahrim) A mahram refers to the group of people who are unlawful for a woman to marry due to marital or blood relationships. These people include: Her permanant Mahrams due to blood relationship, and those seven are: her father, her son (who passed puberty), her brother, her uncle from her father's side, her brother's son, her sister's son, and her uncle from her mother's side. Her Radha' Mahrams due to sharing the nursing milk when she was an infant, and their status is similar to the permanent seven Mahrams (i.e. nothing can change their status). Her (in law) Mahrams because of marriage and they are: her husband's father (father in law), her husband's son (step son), her mother's husband (step father), and her daughter's husband."

Hijab Photo Gallery (ModernMuslima.com, May 2, 2006)

Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Citizenship and Justice (Freedom House Survey, May 20, 2005):
"Country Ratings for Saudi Arabia
Nondiscrimination and Access to Justice: 1.2
Autonomy, Security, and Freedom of the Person: 1.1
Economic Rights and Equal Opportunity: 1.4
Political Rights and Civic Voice: 1.0
Social and Cultural Rights: 1.6
(Scale of 1 to 5: 1 represents the lowest and 5 the highest level of freedom women have to exercise their rights)"

1UpInfo, Saudi Arabia: "Crimes subject to the death sentence included murder, apostasy from Islam, adultery, drug smuggling, and sabotage. Under certain conditions, rape and armed robbery could also lead to execution. Executions could be carried out by beheading, firing squad, or stoning of the convicted person in a drugged state. ... Under the sharia, repeated theft is punishable by amputation of the right hand, administered under anesthetic. Because of its severity, a number of qualifications have been introduced to mitigate the punishment. If the thief repents and makes restitution before the case is brought before a judge, the punishment can be reduced; furthermore, the victim can demand recompense rather than punishment or can grant a pardon. Highway crime was considered a crime against public safety and thus subject to more severe punishment. Aggravated theft can be punished by cross-amputation of a hand and a foot. Such cases have been unusual, but Amnesty International reported four of them in 1986. In 1990 fewer than ten hand amputations took place, at least five of which were administered to foreigners. Flogging with a cane was often imposed for offenses against religion and public morality, such as drunkenness and gambling and the neglect of prayer requirements and fasting. Although the flogging was painful, the skin was not broken. The purpose was to degrade rather than cripple the offender and serve as a deterrent to others. United States citizens have been flogged for alcoholrelated offenses, usually receiving from thirty to 120 strokes."

Amnesty International Annual Report 2002:(PDF 54 KB): "Grave and widespread human rights violations continued to be reported. They were perpetuated by the strictly secretive criminal justice system and the government policy of barring political parties, trade unions and independent human rights organizations; international non-governmental human rights organizations were not allowed access to the country. The government failed to respond to any of the concerns raised by AI during the year. Hundreds of teenagers were flogged. Women continued to face severe discrimination. Arrests of suspected political and religious activists continued and the legal status of those held from previous years remained shrouded in secrecy."

Saudi Arabia: A secret state of suffering (Amnesty International Report): "Sadiq 'Abd al-Karim Mal Allah, a Saudi Arabian Shi'a Muslim, was executed in 1992. Neither he nor his family knew that he was under sentence of death or for what "crime" he had been convicted. He was apparently charged with smuggling a copy of the Bible into Saudi Arabia. He denied the charge, but was reportedly requested to convert to Wahabism, an interpretation of Islam favoured by the state. When he refused, the judge was reported to have told him: "You abandon your rejectionist belief or I will kill you." On 3 September 1992 he was publicly beheaded in al-Qatif. These cases illustrate the intense fear and secrecy surrounding the imposition of the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. Those facing execution are rarely told in advance the date of execution. Sometimes prisoners are not even aware that they have been sentenced to death."

Saudi Arabia is not a vacation paradise (Religious Freedom Coalition): " Don't believe for a minute that the harsh treatment of women in Saudi Arabia is limited to its citizens. Western women expatriates living in Saudi Arabia are continually harassed by militant local youths and the religious police (mutaween). The Guardian newspaper in London, England reports that then harassment has become worse since September 11th. The newspaper reports that many British who work in Saudi Arabia, both men and women, are leaving. "Only the hard-core are staying," one returning Brit said, but most are leaving when their contracts expire. One female British worker in Saudi, Ms. June Thomas, said, 'Women can be picked up for anything. If they are outside a shop waiting for it to open when the owner comes back from prayers, they were mutaween bait. The mutaween accuse them of loitering to pick up a man, of being prostitutes. They are thrown straight in jail because they have no facilities in the police stations to question women.' She said. Ms. Thomas has worked for five years as a hospital security "female investigator". It is her job to educate western women about Islamic law and to represent them if they get in trouble with authorities. Now she is leaving. What was the last straw for her? Three young western women were arrested and thrown in jail for three days with no food or water after being strip searched in a corridor. They became dangerously dehydrated. What was their crime? At an empty Italian restaurant with three other nurses, two of the group had bared their arms while eating. My advice: Scratch Saudi Arabia off your list of vacation destinations. Keep in mind that Saudi Arabia is our "moderate" ally in the war against Islamic terror. The reality is that most of the funding for Islamic terror comes from Saudi and the antihuman treatment of women is the bench mark of the Saudi society which is based on Islam."

One Purely Evil Cartel. Iraq's liberation is the perfect opportunity to smash OPEC (Claudia Rosett, Wall Street Journal, Jul 30, 2003): "Though there are many polite ways in which OPEC is usually described, it would be accurate to sum up this outfit's activities as follows: a gang of price-fixing, oil-rich thug regimes that meet to reinforce assorted terrorist-sponsoring tyrants and gouge consumers. ... The Saudis are, of course, entitled to offer oil at any price they want, including the OPEC target price of $22 to $28 a barrel for oil that costs them $1 to $2 a barrel to produce. But the Saudi-led collusion that goes into keeping world oil prices high enough to command prices that OPEC deems "fair and reasonable" is the kind of stuff that would get private capitalists in the U.S. fried on prime-time TV and thrown in prison. ... Oil in any nation is a perilous treasure, but especially so when it is entirely owned or controlled by the state. In government hands, in large quantities, oil wealth helps rulers consolidate control to a degree that in Saudi Arabia today funds the totalitarian state--with its export of its Wahhabi terrorist creed. In Iraq, the state oil monopoly sustained Saddam Hussein. Huge oil revenues relieve the rulers of the need to negotiate with their subjects any sort of mutually acceptable tax system. Instead, oil tyrants are in a position to govern chiefly by bribe and threat. The result is stunted development, both political and economic. Saudi Arabia's per capita income, despite the country's vast oil wealth, has been shrinking for years. OPEC's overall rate of economic growth this year is estimated by its own analysts at 1.4%, or less than half the world average of 2.9%."

Saudi Arabia's Overrated Oil Weapon (Max Singer, Weekly Standard, Aug 18, 2003): "OVERESTIMATES OF ARAB OIL POWER are an important and harmful influence on policy toward the Middle East. The following myths, or outdated facts, support the world's misjudgment of the power of the Persian Gulf oil producers--especially Saudi Arabia, but also Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf states."

Medina, Islam's second holiest city, was originally a Jewish "settlement": "The city of Medina, some 280 miles north of Mecca, had originally been settled by Jewish tribes from the north, especially the Banu Nadir and Banu Quraiza. The comparative richness of the town attracted an infiltration of pagan Arabs who came at first as clients of the Jews and ultimately succeeded in dominating them. Medina, or, as it was known before Islam, Yathrib, had no form of stable government at all. The town was tom by the feuds of the rival Arab tribes of Aus and Khazraj, with the Jews maintaining an uneasy balance of power. The latter, engaged mainly in agriculture and handicrafts, were economically and culturally superior to the Arabs, and were consequently disliked.... as soon as the Arabs had attained unity through the agency of Muhammad they attacked and ultimately eliminated the Jews." (Professor Bernard Lewis, Arabs in History, p. 40).

Riyadh's faithlessness becomes an American political issue (Review & Outlook, Wall Street Journal, Aug 8, 2003): "There was a day when those words didn't invite cynicism. Since World War II, the mutual interests involved in America's need for Saudi oil and the Saudis' need for American protection created a happy marriage of convenience. Recent events on Capitol Hill, however, suggest that too many inside the U.S. and Saudi governments have not yet grasped that this old model was forever buried in the rubble of 9/11."

Palestinian refugees in Saudi Arabia (Wikipedia, Oct 8, 2005): An estimated number of 500,000 Palestinians are living in the kingdom of Saudi-Arabia as of December 2004. They are not allowed to hold or even apply for Saudi citizenship, as the new law passed by Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers in October 2004 ( which entitles expatriates of all nationalities who have resided in the kingdom for ten years to apply for citizenship, with priority being given to holders of degrees in various scientific fields ) has one glaring exception: Palestinians will not be allowed to benefit from the new law because of Arab League instructions barring the Arab states from granting them citizenship in order "to avoid dissolution of their identity and protect their right to return to their homeland".

Saudi religious leader calls for slavery's legalization (Daniel Pipes, Nov 7, 2003): Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan [is] the author of a religious textbook (At-Tawhid, "Monotheism") widely used to teach Saudi high school students as well as their counterparts abroad studying in Saudi schools (including those in the West). "Slavery is a part of Islam," he announced in a recent lecture. "Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam." He argued against the idea that slavery had ever been abolished, insulting those who espouse this view as "ignorant, not scholars. They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel." Al-Fawzan is no maverick. He is: