Can Saudi Arabia Reform the Religious Police?→

Louise Lief provides a good overview of steps taken by the Saudi government to reform the notorious religious police:

The Saudi king showers the Hai’a with resources while seeking to rein it in. He is expanding the Hai’a’s staff, building expensive new “guidance centers,” and purchasing fleets of new GMC SUVs for the Hai’a men. But in January, the Saudi cabinet ruled that Hai’a men may no longer interrogate suspects or determine the charges against them. They may still arrest people, though, for offenses like practicing witchcraft and consuming alcohol, and they continue to enforce the ban public entertainment, women driving, and other religious rulings.

The talk of reforming CPVPV is often repeated every time the King appoints a new chief of the organization. One of the reasons why reform is an extremely difficult challenge is that many of CPVPV employees seem to believe that what they do is not merely a government job but rather a religious duty mandated by God. So despite these efforts to reform, misconduct continue to take place on the country’s streets all the time.

Take, for example, this story of a Saudi woman and her British husband who were accused of being unmarried outside the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina of all places. The husband writes:

My wife told the aggressive Mutaween that I would go and get the marriage certificate, which was only a few kilometers away in our hotel room. However, they kept hold of me and demanded that my tearful wife walk to the hotel to retrieve it. Here we were outside the Prophet’s mosque, being treated so shamelessly by a bunch of thugs!

While my wife was trekking back to the hotel, the Mutaween made several attempts to drag me in to one of their security cars. I constantly resisted, as I was innocent of all the things they were stupidly accusing my wife and me of having done. She returned, still in tears, an hour later with the marriage certificate. The Mutaween inspected the certificate and found that we were telling the truth.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in their interview with the religious police chief last October, “observers are skeptical of the durability of Mr. Sheikh’s reforms, predicting he will meet tough opposition from rank-and-file members of the Hia’a.” Based on recent incidents like this one, these observers are probably right to be skeptical.

Saudi University Develops Weather Drones→

A drone monitoring system that could track potentially deadly floods in real time to sound an alarm before they hit is being developed in the Kingdom.

Existing forecasting models are good at predicting roughly when an area might experience the right mix of conditions to create a flash flood, but they can’t say precisely when or where a flood will strike.

This research is being done at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Saudi Arabia is also said to be seeking purchase of drones for military use from South Africa.

Amnesty 2013 Human Rights Report on Saudi Arabia→

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International released their annual report for 2013. As expected, the section on Saudi Arabia is very grim. The summary reads:

The authorities severely restricted freedoms of expression, association and assembly and clamped down on dissent. Government critics and political activists were detained without trial or sentenced after grossly unfair trials. Women were discriminated against in law and practice and inadequately protected against domestic and other violence. Migrant workers were exploited and abused. Sentences of flogging were imposed and carried out. Hundreds of people were on death row at the end of the year; at least 79 people were executed.

The report also notes that “Amnesty International continued to be effectively barred from visiting Saudi Arabia to conduct human rights research.”

Rich Nation, Poor People→

Photojournalist Lynsey Addario produced a powerful slideshow about poverty in Saudi Arabia for TIME magazine:

With its vast oil wealth, Saudi Arabia has one of the highest concentrations of super rich households in the world. But an estimated 20 percent of the population, if not more, lives in crippling poverty. Beggars panhandle in the shadows of Riyadh’s luxury shopping malls, and just a few kilometers away families struggle to get by in the capital’s southern slums.

Real Truth Becoming Increasingly Transparent→

Interesting Q&A with Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He says:

The human rights situation in the country remains dire by any objective measure. But with the advent of social media, the real truth is becoming increasingly transparent to Saudis. This is particularly the case with political prisoners. 

Saudis are increasingly debating their government’s behavior and old limits on criticizing the royal family are being breached. They are questioning whether the religious establishment should have a stranglehold over the country’s judiciary and legal process. And some high-profile incidents are sparking debate.

PS. The photo on top of that page is from Kuwait, not Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Solar Win-Win→

After years of stalling on solar, Saudi authorities now appear to be moving quickly to capitalize on the slump in costs, with contracts for the first round of 500-800 MW of solar power expected before the end of 2013 and a target of over 5,000 MW installed in the next five years.

“Solar in the Middle East is not being prompted today based on environmental or reputational concerns. It is simple economics,” Michael Parker, an energy analyst at Bernstein Research said in a May 10 note.

Saudi Confirms Another Death from MERS Coronavirus→

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health confirmed on Wednesday that a foreign man has died by the new MERS coronavirus. The man was hospitalized few days ago in the central region of Qassim due to a severe reparatory infection and died on Tuesday, the Ministry said in a brief statement published on its website. Al-Riyadh daily cited a statement by the Health Affairs Directorate in Qassim saying the man was 63 years old and suffered chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes. A spokesman told the newspaper that a team of experts will visit Qassim to ensure that healthcare providers have not contracted the virus which has killed 17 people in Saudi Arabia so far.

Saudi White Ribbon Campaign Faces Conservative Backlash→

Eman al-Nafjan writes about the religious conservatives’ backlash against a newly launched local White Ribbon campaign to end violence against women:

The most influential sheikh to lash out against the White Ribbon campaign is Sheikh Nasser Al Omar. In a video-taped sermon he instructs all Muslims to reject Abdullah Al Alami and Samar Fatani’s campaign. He refers to them collectively as advocates of immorality. He says that the White Ribbon campaign compromises the very foundation of the pact between the Saudi Royal family and Mohammad bin Abdul Wahab’s followers. He also mentions national security three times in the 24 minute long video.

Saudi religious conservatives have repeatedly stood against many initiative aiming to advance women’s rights in the country, especially when such initiatives are linked, even vaguely or remotely, to anything foreign. They have for years fought the adoption of the CEDAW agreement to end discrimination against women, even after the government signed it. Four female college students were arrested during the Riyadh book fair last March for distributing small papers tied to pieces of candy with statements warning Muslim women against the CEDAW agreement

More Roadblocks for Saudi Women Who Want to Drive→

Fouzia Khan reports in Arab News:

A proposal to make it illegal to drive vehicles in the Gulf States while wearing the veil could hamper efforts by Saudi women to drive cars in the Kingdom.

The Directors General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, in its 13th meeting on Monday in Jeddah, considered the draft from Gulf traffic departments as part of a larger effort to outline more specific unified traffic violations for all Gulf States.

While the draft is not a blanket ban on the veil, its passage into law would make it illegal for drivers to cover their faces in front of traffic police officers.

Saudi Arabia is the only GCC country that bans women from driving. In the past, Saudi women could easily obtain a driving license from other GCC countries, but some restrictions have been put in place to stop that in recent years. The latest of these restrictions come from Kuwait, which now bans Saudi women from obtaining a driving license without the permission of their male guardian, according to al-Hayat daily. “We know there are certain reservations about women driving in Saudi Arabia,” a Kuwaiti official told the newspaper. “Sometimes the male guardian does not approve that their women drive, and we don’t want to cause a family problem by granting a driving license to a woman without the knowledge of her family.”

Saudi Women Teachers Protest for Full Time Jobs→

About 30 Saudi women teachers have demonstrated outside the kingdom's Education Ministry, demanding full time jobs.

An Associated Press reporter saw women holding posters Monday calling for full time contracts and benefits that include steady pay and retirement packages.

According to photos posted on Twitter, another protest was staged by women teachers outside the Royal Court in Jeddah on Tuesday.

£4 Billion Worth of Arms in Four Years→

The UK has granted arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia worth almost £4bn over the past four years despite growing fears about the human rights record in the kingdom during the Arab spring, new figures show.

Last year the government approved licenses worth £112m for 209 items, including crowd control ammunition grenades, components for military aircraft and combat vehicles, and components for electronic warfare.

Saudi Arabia Executes Five Yemenis, Bodies Left Hanging in Public→

Saudi Arabia has executed five Yemenis convicted of murder and committing a series of robberies.

Their bodies were left hanging in public following the execution in the south-western town of Jizan, near the Yemen border.

Twitter users posted grisly photos of the five dead men. At least 46 people have been executed in in the country this year.

Coronavirus Kills Another Saudi→

Saudi Arabia confirmed on Monday the death of one of the patients infected by the novel coronavirus, which some scientific journals now refer to as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS. The Ministry of Health published a short statement on its website saying the patient had chronic heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and renal failure. This raises to 16 the number of deaths by the virus. MOH also said that one of the healthcare professionals who contracted the virus is improving and has left the hospital. No new cases has been recorded since the last one that was announced on Friday.

Saudi Woman Scales Mount Everest→

A Saudi Arabian woman was among 64 people who successfully scaled Mount Everest on Saturday from Nepal’s side of the mountain, according to mountaineering officials.

Raha Moharrak, who is 25 years old and lives in Dubai, has become the first Saudi woman to scale the world’s highest peak. “I really don’t care about being the first,” she was quoted as saying, according to the BBC. “So long as it inspires someone else to be second.”

Lowest Bidder→

Rashid al-Fouzan:

Anyone who follows up on the government projects will notice that many of them are never completed on time or that their completion is not according to the required standards or quality. Years and years have passed on some projects without them being completed while the need for them is steadily growing. As a result, development remains to be an illusive goal and the gap in services remains unsolved. The government projects have been characterized by slowness, slackness and incompletion.

In my opinion, the entire problem lies in the way the government projects are offered. The projects are usually offered to the lowest bidder. This is an actual fact despite repeated denials by the concerned government departments. When he opens his file to see why the project is behind schedule, the contractor will discover that he has spent his money not on the project itself but in some other areas.

This echoes statements made earlier by Said al-Shaikh, Chief Economist at the National Commercial Bank, who said during a press conference on Tuesday that the current system of awarding government contracts made banks reluctant to give loans to small and medium contractors. Al-Shaikh, who is also a member of the Shoura Council, said “banks now view the whole construction and contracting sector in the Kingdom as being semi-monopolized by three or four corporations only.”

Saudi Confirms 31st Coronavirus Case→

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health confirmed on Friday another case of the novel coronavirus in the Eastern Province. “One case of coronavirus has been reported in the Eastern region, and he is now under medical care and receiving proper treatment,” MOH said in a brief statement published on its website. The new discovery raises to 31 the total number of nCov infections in the country since the SARS-like virus first emerged in September 2012. Most cases have been recorded at the oasis of Al-Ahsa in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia.

Self-immolation in Riyadh→

A Saudi man has died after setting himself on fire in protest at his treatment by authorities, the BBC has learned.

Sources told BBC Arabic that more than 100 hundred people gathered outside the police department in capital Riyadh in anger at Ali Jabiri Alhouraysi’s death.

He is said to have killed himself after being searched by police.

The incident is similar to the death of Tunisian man Muhammad Bouazizi, who set himself on fire in 2011 in protest, triggering revolution a revolution that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was offered refuge in Saudi Arabia. Like Bouazizi, the Saudi man was also a vegetable street vendor.

A Few Good Saudi Men→

A Saudi lawyer who defended activists says he has been hounded out of the country because he stood up for human rights. Now in Washington DC, Abd al-Aziz al-Hussan tells Marc Lynch this his situation is not unique as the government has launched a crackdown on those who dare speak against it. Lynch writes:

During a conversation in Washington this week, Hussan emphasized that this was not just a personal matter. He told me that his case was part of a broader crackdown on human rights activists, lawyers, and reformers. Since the sentencing of Qahtani and Hamed in March, he argued, the Saudi regime has been on the offensive against human rights activists and Sunni protesters. Activists and lawyers such as Fawzan al-Harbi and Abdulkarim al-Khoder have been harassed and interrogated, and security forces have arrested hundreds of demonstrators, holding many of them for weeks without access to lawyers. The Saudi government also appears determined to explore the possibilities for monitoring and controlling social media, particularly Twitter.

Four Million Visas Issued to Pilgrims→

The official Saudi Press Agency:

The Ministry of Hajj has announced that the number of Umrah visas already issued since the start of Umrah season this year 1434 H. are approaching the 4 million target.

A statement said yesterday that the number of Umrah Performers entering the Kingdom over the last five months reached 3,145,506 from more than 70 countries around the world.

The major hajj occurs this year in October and is expected to draw three million Muslims from around the world, despite concerns about the spread of a new SARS-like virus that has killed 15 people in Saudi Arabia so far.

Launch of Foreign Carriers Operating Saudi Domestic Routes Delayed Due to Fuel Prices Dispute→

Two air carriers that have won licenses from the General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA) will not be able to operate by the end of this year, informed sources told Al-Watan Arabic daily.

Qatar Airways and Gulf Air may be forced to delay their domestic operations after a committee comprising leading officials from GACA and Saudi Aramco failed to reach a resolution on what fuel prices to charge the two airlines, the sources claimed.

GACA is demanding Saudi Aramco to provide reduced fuel prices as they do for Saudi Arabian Airlines, but the state-owned oil giant does not appear keen on that. The two airlines won the domestic license back in December.