Saudi Arabia May Shift Weekend to Friday Start

Saudi Arabia’s Shoura Council recommended a study to shift the country’s weekend from Thursday-Friday to Friday-Saturday, local media reported. The proposed shift will align banking and business days with most other countries in the region.

The Shoura Council, an advisory body that serves as a quasi-parliament whose members are appointed by the King, passed the recommendation commissioning a study to shift the weekend for civil servants after reviewing a report by the Ministry of Civil Service. According to al-Madina daily, 83 members voted for the recommendation while 41 members voted against it. If Shoura supports the change, the shift will require approval from the Council of Ministers before it gets implemented.

The Ministry first suggested a change of the weekend back in 2007, but the Shoura Council failed to pass the proposal. Members who voted against the change at the time cited Islamic reasons. “The proposal for changing the weekend is unacceptable in a country that rules by the Quran and Sunnah and takes them as its constitution,” said Mahmoud Taibah, then deputy president of Shoura.

However, members of the business community continued to demand a weekend shift saying “the national economy incurs huge losses that run into billions of riyals due to the weekend difference with the international community,” Ibrahim Badawood wrote.

Currently, only Saudi Arabia and Oman follow a Thursday-Friday weekend but Oman announced earlier this month that it will also shift to a Friday-Saturday weekend at the beginning of May. Other GCC countries start their two-day weekends on Friday.

Alwaleed Calls for Elections→

Saudi billionaire prince Alwaleed bin Talal has called for parliamentary elections in the absolute monarchy where the king names members of a toothless Shura consultative council.

Prince Alwaleed, the richest Arab businessman and a nephew of King Abdullah, said in a television interview aired late Tuesday the monarch’s January decision to appoint 30 women to the council was “very important” but needed to go further.

“For this to become historic, I think two things are essential: first, elections, even if partial, and, more importantly, (giving) powers,” he said in the interview aired on several channels, most belonging to his media empire.

When the interview was first advertised some people wondered if this was an attempt of PR damage control after the prince’s spat with Forbes magazine over his wealth. The controversy only received a brief mention during the interview, where Alwaleed said this was not about his wealth but rather about defending the Saudi stock market and its integrity. Commenters on Twitter said the interview was meant as an introduction to Alwaleed and to show that he wants to become more involved in the public disource in the country. He has praised King Abdullah, but he kept saying much reform is still needed. It is hard to say if Alwaleed is a serious contneder for succession, but he clearly does not lack ambition.

Obaid to Be Honored at Janadriyah→

Female member of the Shoura Council Thoraya Obaid will be honored during the annual national heritage and culture festival, better known as Janadriyah, local media reported Wednesday. She will be decorated with King Abdel Aziz medal. Obaid was the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund and an Under-Secretary General of the United Nations from 2000 to 2010. She was one of 30 women appointed by the king in January 2013 to the Shoura Council, an advisory body that serves as a quasi-parliament, marking a historic progress for women’s rights in the country. Obaid will be the first woman ever to be honored at Janadriyah. This will be another first for the former UN executive who in 1963 became the first Saudi woman to receive a government scholarship to study abroad.

On Saudi Women’s Rights, Boredom is a Sign of Progress→

Aryn Baker reports for TIME:

From the outside, progress on women’s rights in the kingdom may appear to be mired in tar. After all, women are still not allowed to drive, they can’t get a job or take a loan without the permission of a male family member, and their designated male guardians, usually a husband or a father, are notified via SMS every time they leave the kingdom. But from the perspective of women inside the country, dizzying changes are afoot. For the first time, female athletes represented Saudi Arabia at the Olympics last year in London. An employment ban has been lifted for female cashiers at supermarkets, and women have taken the place of men in lingerie and cosmetic stores across the country. And in Riyadh on March 26, Cabinet ministers issued a new law making national identification cards mandatory for all women, granting them identities independent from their families and paving the way toward lifting the onerous guardianship system that treats every woman, regardless of her age, as a minor. That would be a crowning achievement for King Abdullah, who has done more for women in his eight-year reign than any monarch since his brother, King Faisal, allowed girls to go to school in 1964.

Saudi Shoura Council to Discuss Lifting Ban on Women Driving

The Saudi Shoura Council has accepted a petition to look into lifting the ban on women driving, local news site Sabq reported Saturday. The Human Rights and Petitions Committee at the council have studied a petition signed by 3,000 citizens and decided that the issue should be opened for debate on the council floor.

“Merely opening the issue for debate would give credibility to the council,” Sulaiman al-Zaidi, former head of the committee was quoted as saying. “The council would win people’s trust as a body that represents them and takes up their issues.”

Abdulla Alami, one of the main bakers of the petition, told Sabq last December that the petition recommended lifting the ban on women driving and asked the council to set a date to discuss it. “More than 3,000 citizens signed the petition, including academics, columnists, intellectuals and students of both genders,” he said. Alami has recently published a book titled “When would Saudi women drive?” explaining how the petition came about and making the case for lifting the ban.

Earlier this year, King Abdullah appointed 30 women as members of the Shoura Council for the first time. The advisory body serves as a quasi-parliament in the conservative kingdom, and the step of appointing women on it angered some hardline clerics. Preacher Nasser al-Omar criticized female members of the council after they said they want to debate lifting driving ban last month.

No Gender Segregation Wall at Shoura?→

A Saudi newspaper says officials may consider dropping plans for a barrier separating men and the newly appointed women in the country’s top advisory body.

The reports follow the swearing-in ceremony Sunday for the first women in the ultraconservative kingdom’s Shura Council. There was no barrier during the event as the 30 women sat on one side of the chamber and the 130 men on the other.

Worth mentioning that most of the talk about using a barrier between men and women at the Shoura Council chamber has been mostly speculation on the part of local media as government officials preferred to remain vague about the nature of seperation. Now it seems that women will simply be sitting in one side of the chamber with no barriers between them and their female colleagues. Media were not allowed to cover the first session that took place Sunday, but the state news agency has distributed one photo showing the female members in their seats.

Saudi Cleric Slams Shoura Women Push to Lift Driving Ban

A prominent Saudi cleric criticized female members of the Shoura Council who said they plan to debate lifting the ban on women driving as the advisory body begins its sessions for the new cycle next week.

“No wonder. Corrupt beginnings lead to corrupt results,” Sheikh Nasser al-Omar said on Twitter. “Wait for more Westernization.” Al-Omar described the women Shoura members enthusiasm to tackle the ban on driving as “suspicious” and accused them of ignoring “major women issues” that are more pressing.

(بعد أداء القسم، بعض عضوات مجلس الشورى: قيادة السيارة ستطرح بالمجلس) لاعجب، فالمقدمات الفاسدة تؤدي لنتائج فاسدة، وانتظروا المزيد من التغريب

— أ.د.ناصر العمر (@naseralomar) February 21, 2013

من المريب حماس هؤلاء النسوة لقيادة السيارة حلا بزعمهن لمشكلات السائق وتجاهل حلول أنجع وأكثر عملية ، وتجاهل مشكلات كبرى للمرأة ، أكثر إلحاحا!

— أ.د.ناصر العمر (@naseralomar) February 21, 2013

This statement by al-Omar comes after two female members of the Shoura Council told the local al-Jazirah daily that they plan to form a united front at the council to push for allowing women to drive. “God willing, we would discuss women driving,” said councilwoman Dr. Salwa al-Hazzaa, “especially that we are 30 female members in the council and we will be one voice.”

The topic of women driving has been discussed under the dome of the Shoura Council in previous years, but the council has not taken a vote to lift the ban. Newly appointed councilwoman Thurayya Al-Urayed told the newspaper that the door is always open for the public to petition the council to look into different issues. “It is likely that there would be other petitions about [women driving] brought to the council,” she said.

King Abdullah on Tuesday swore in new members of the Shoura Council, including 30 women. “Your place in the Shura Council is not as those who have been honored, but as those who have been charged with a duty, as you represent part of society,” he reportedly told the 30 new women members who make up one fifth of the fully appointed body. The King’s decision has riled the country’s conservative clerics who staged a protest outside the royal court in Riyadh last month.

Don’t Call Shoura a Parliament→

Abdulrahman al-Rashed says as long as the Shoura Council are appointed and not elected then it is not a parliament. He calls for partial election of Shoura:

I believe that the Shoura Council being a mixture of recruited members with extraordinary talent and elected representatives of different social groups raises accountability for the growing state, which is justified because the state has more responsibilities and thus the expectations of citizens have grown.

King Abdullah Swears In First Women Members of Shoura Council→

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Tuesday swore in the country’s first female members of the Shura Council, an appointed body that advises on new laws, in a move that has riled conservative clerics in the Islamic monarchy.

Below is a video from the Saudi state television of the swearing-in ceremony:

Change Our Weekend→

As many countries in the Middle East have changed their weekend from Thursday-Friday to Friday-Saturday in order to stay more connected and do more business with other parts of the world that have their weekend on Saturday and Sunday, the matter of changing the weekend remained a stubborn issue in Saudi Arabia despite several proposals at the Shoura Council to look into this. Ibrahim Badawood says it is about time:

In a recent symposium on the issue, businessmen were unanimous in their opinion that the national economy incurs huge losses that run into billions of riyals due to the weekend difference with the international community.

The Kingdom’s economy is linked with the world economy, especially since Saudi Arabia is a member of the G-20. A weekend change will also serve the interests of visiting foreign delegations and it will no doubt benefit local companies too.

Most of the calls and arguments made for the weekend change are purely economic in nature. However, a prominent scholar did go on the record to say there was nothing in the Shariah that prevented the change. The scholar said it was up to Muslims to decide what was in their best interests.

Snubbed by Shoura Council, Conservative Women Feel Marginalized→

In Al-Monitor by yours truly:

While the Saudi official religious establishment has chosen to resort to silence over the appointments, as they usually do when they find themselves in disagreement with the royal family, some conservatives have decided to show their objection in a rather unusual, public manner. Dozens of clerics staged a protest outside the Royal Court in Riyadh last week, breaking with the Wahabbi tradition that does not allow street protests and instructs that advice to rulers can only be offered gently and in private.

It is important, however, to note that not all conservatives are against the king’s decision. A special group worth highlighting here are conservative female academics and writers. These women reject the label “feminists,” and they see their role as defenders of Islam against what they consider the Western-inspired notion of women empowerment promoted by many activists in this field.

Make Saudi Women Visible→

Mounira Jamjoom says the economical empowerment of Saudi women is her “battle,” but it still won’t be enough to integrate women in society. To do that you need make women more visible in public life, and she hopes that the appointment of 30 women to the Shoura Council would help to achieve this:

Research shows that visibility is a key dimension of empowerment. It creates national role models and encourages younger women to advance in their careers. In Argentina, for example, women have made progress thanks to their national prominence. They hold high political office and are 39 percent of the parliament, compared to 6 per cent in 1990. Visibility fosters economic integration—Argentina's women are now 40 percent of the workforce, according to the World Bank.

The engagement of women in the policy debate is critical. Women's issues can become more salient in Shura Council discussions. The council's advisory role means it can offer proposals and programs to executive bodies that emphasize women’s education, employment and civil, legal and social status.

Like a Chocolate Biscuit→

Abeer Miskhas:

Apparently, we were a bit too hasty in celebrating the appointment of the first women as members of the Shura council. Maybe we should have enjoyed the news bit by bit and lingered it out like a chocolate biscuit, just to keep the joy going and to sustain us through the tedious and illogical process of figuring out the details relating to women’s participation.

Those details are not related, alas, to schedules or agendas and alliances or working out strategies for joint projects. No, these issues don’t seem to be of the utmost importance right now. The most important thing is to keep those 30 outstanding women away from their male colleagues, even if that means postponing the first two sessions of the council.

Saudi Clerics Against Women’s Rights, 1963 Edition→

Religious conservatives protesting issues related to women in Saudi Arabia is nothing new. Mahmoud Sabbagh has posted this clipping from the New York Times, published on December 26, 1963 about clerics meeting with King Faisal to protest the use of women’s voices on the national radio. He was adamant. Soon you will see them on television, Faisal said.

Segregation at Shoura: Moral or Political?→

Khaled al-Dekhayel is confused over the gender segregation provisions in the royal decrees appointing women in the Shoura Council:

if we entrust council members, both women and men, to take responsibility of contributing to the legislative process with all its importance and seriousness, as well as give opinions about it, why do not we trust their personal behavior? How they can be trusted on questions and issues related to public affairs and of public interest, but at the same time cannot be trusted on issues related to their individual beliefs and obligations? Those who cannot be trusted for their convictions and personal obligations cannot be trusted for the issues of the size and seriousness of the nation’s legislation!

All the new members, men and women, hold high professional postgraduate degrees and have a great deal of experience. I do not think any of them are under 40 years of age, which means that they have reached a stage where they have a sense of responsibility by virtue of their age, knowledge and experience. If we do not believe in the sense of an individual’s responsibility about themselves, their manners, and their commitment to the laws and customs after all those years of age, and after all that time of practical and scientific experience, when will we believe them?

Al-Dekhayel is obviously asking rhetorical questions here, because there is no way he believes that the segregation at Shoura is about morals and not a political choice. Earlier in the article he says it is “likely that the king was forced” to include these provisions out of consideration for the sensitivities of some people in society, but I would say it is more likely that he made this choice to appease the conservatives. That, of course, was not enough. Few days later the clerics were protesting outside the royal court.

What is Behind the Clerics Royal Court Protest

As dozens of clerics staged a protest outside the Royal Court in Riyadh last week, conflicted reports surfaced over the motives behind this unusual move. Wahhabi clerics traditionally do not see the permissibility of holding street protests and they insist that advice to rulers must be conveyed secretly.

“Protests and sit-ins are disobedience of the rulers and disruptive and not permissible,” Sheikh Saleh al-Fawzan, member of the Council of Senior Ulema, told Saudi state television on Friday. He added that “Western-style protests” are un-Islamic.

Early reports indicated that the clerics broke with tradition to protest the appointment of women to the Shoura Council. A short video uploaded to YouTube showed one of them talk about the appointments in the council. “These recent appointments in Shoura do not represent the good people,” the cleric in the video said. “These appointments do not reflect all factions in society.” While he did not mention women by name, his statement was widely understood to mean just that.

Liberals were divided over the protest. While some criticized the protest because they saw it as an attack on women’s rights, others defended the right of protesters to express their views even if such views, those liberal said, are backwards. Some conservatives were quick to clarify that the protest was not about women in Shoura. Yusuf al-Ahmad, a cleric who was recently released from jail for “disrupting general order,” said on Twitter that the clerics who protested wanted the government to end corruption in issues like “illegal detention, usury, poverty, television channels, Shoura, Westernization.”

Attempting to analyze the real motives behind the protest, Mohannad Najjar wrote that the main motive is to object to appointing women in Shoura but this has been combined with other demands to “give more acceptable legitimacy” to the protest.

This analysis seemed accurate. Seven clerics who were among the protesters outside the Royal Court released a statement Saturday explaining why they chose to take a measure that many would consider extreme by Wahhabi standards. The seven-pages long statement said that in light of recent changes in the country, the clerics felt obliged to take action in fear that the country could be cursed by God.

The statement offered a long, detailed list of grievances:

• “Sponsoring ideological chaos and cultural looseness” through book fairs, literature clubs, libraries and cafes, as well as the expanding margin for freedom of expression in media.
• Opening law schools and “weakening” Sharia courts.
• Changes in education policy that encourage gender mixing and spending billions of riyals to send students to study abroad.
• Allowing women to participate in sports, including the decision to send two girls to compete in the Olympic games in London last year.
• “Normalization of gender mixing in society” through encouraging women employment in different fields like retail, manufacturing, restaurants, law firms and other businesses, as well as allowing women to join the Shoura Council and boards of public organizations and delegations.
• Improper use of public money, including the lack of housing, bad healthcare services and imposing taxes.
• Illegal detention.

The clerics said they have repeatedly asked to discuss these issues with the Khaled al-Tuwaijri, Royal Court chief of staff and the private secretary of King Abdullah. Many conservatives accuse al-Tuwaijri of pushing for reforms in Saudi Arabia, reforms they deem incompatible with the country’s Islamic identity. After their demands to meet al-Tuwaijri went unanswered, the clerics said, it was the decision to appoint women in the Shoura Council that has pushed them to protest outside the Royal Court. The decision to appoint women has come “despite fatwas from our respected scholars that it is not permissible,” they said, adding that the ratio of women in the council exceeds the usual in other parliaments around the world.

“Some female and male members of the council have a bad reputation” and do not represent society “in its culture, identity, manners, or the aspiration of individuals — which makes it clear that members of the Shoura Council should be elected, not appointed,” the clerics said.

However, Abdulrahman al-Ahmad, one of the protesters, said on Twitter today that this statement only represents those seven clerics who signed it. While there was an agreement between protesters on some demands like illegal detention and electing Shoura members, he said, they did not have a prior specific set of demands when they decided to stage the protest.

This lack of consensus among the clerics and the failure to express their demands coherently have contributed to the confusion and speculation about the motives behind their sit-in. The protest was reportedly dispersed by security forces in the scene, but another protest is planned for January 29 in the same location outside the Royal Court. They might want to appoint a spokesman this time around.

Female Shoura Member: Change Always Comes from Above, Needs to ‘Grow Roots’→

Newly appointed female member of the Shoura Council Thuraya al-Arrayed spoke to PRI’s The World yesterday. She said she was not surprised by her selection. She also said two things that seem contradictory. “You can’t bring change, bang them on the head with it, and expect it to succeed. It has to grow roots,” she said, before adding, “I would also say that in our case it has been proven that a decision from above is always more successful than leaving it to people to haggle about.” You can listen to the whole interview below.

How Will Shoura Separate Men from Women?

In the royal decrees announcing the appointment of women to the Shoura Council, the decrees stressed that the decision has come after consultation with religious scholars and that it would follow the strict rules of Sharia. The decrees said that men and women will be segregated inside the council, with a special area designated for women who will enter through a separate door. It is still unclear, however, how this separation between male and female members will be achieved inside the council chamber.

Asharq al-Awsat spoke today with Ahmed al-Suhaimi, the secretary-general of the Shoura Council, who said that there will be a partition but did not elaborate on the nature of this partition. “Nothing will block the council speaker’s view of the female members,” he said, “and nothing will block their view of him.” Al-Suhaimi added that the word “partition” gives them flexibility and leaves space for interpretation.

This is exactly what the newspaper did, speculating that there are no more than three options for Shoura when it comes to the nature of this partition:

1. Movable screens like the ones usually available in the family sections of Saudi restaurants to separate those who want more privacy from the rest. Such screens can be made of wood, glass or other fabrics.

2. Fixed glass partition using one-way mirrors. The newspaper said this type of partition is common in Saudi universities where female students would wait for their drivers to pick them up.

3. Fence made of wood with Islamic patterns similar to the ones seen in bay windows in places like the old part of Jeddah. The newspaper said this is the most likely option.

Amazing how many resources are being wasted to ensure gender segregation in this country. This is an example of Saudi exceptionalism at its best (or worst).

Saudi Women: From Shoura to Full Citizenship?→

Badriya al-Bisher says appointing women to the Shoura Council is just the beginning:

The Consultative Council is the first step after which women will be able to demand the rest of their civil rights. I had said before that this decision to allow women into the Consultative Council should lift all other bans previously imposed on women and which stripped her of her civil rights like the right to guardianship, travel, driving, and equality. Very soon, we are expecting women to become ministers of social affairs or education or head any of the ministries through which women can start to occupy ministerial posts.

Saudi King Appoints Women to Shoura Council for First Time

King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the previously all-male Shoura Council in decrees published on Friday and carried by the official Saudi Press Agency. The decrees give women a 20 percent quota in the council, a consultative body appointed by the king.

The King took the decisions following consultations with religious leaders in the country, according to the decrees published by SPA. The decrees said men and women will be segregated inside the council, with a special area designated for females who will enter through a separate door. Female members of the council “will be asked to strictly follow the Islamic Sharia regulations, without any kind of violation, including the Shraia head and face covers,” the royal decree said. It is worth noting that the original text of the decree in Arabic does not include the part about “head and face covers.”

King Abdullah had been slowly introducing reform to the conservative kingdom, where women are subjected to many restrictions including a ban on driving. Saudi Arabia held municipal elections for the first time in 2005, and in September 2011 the king announced plans to name women in the Shoura Council and granted women the right to vote and run as candidates in the next local elections, set for 2015.

The decision “gave confidence to women to take part in important decision-making matters in the country,” Thuraya al-Arrayed, an education specialist, who was appointed to the Shoura Council told Al Arabiya. “We are not here to represent ourselves but to represent the public, women and men alike.”

Not everyone agrees. Using the hashtag “Shoura Council does not represent me” on Twitter, many Saudis expressed their frustration with the practice of appointing members of the council and its limited powers. “The amendments ignored Saudis’ demands of electing the members and increasing the council powers!” activist Manal al-Sharif exclaimed. “It still cannot pass or enforce laws.”

Looking at the list of the 150 members appointed, there are no major surprises. They are your typical academics and bureaucrats who have always made up the great bulk of Shoura over the years. The number of women is more than what local media predicted in the weeks leading to the announcement, and not all of the former female advisers to the council were appointed. Those who wanted a women quota were granted their wish. As for representation of the Shia minority, the number of Shia members is up to six, including two women. The previous council had five Shia members.

Does the inclusion of women in a toothless, unelected body like Shoura matter? It depends on who you ask.

Some outside observers like Toby C. Jones, author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia, said the the Shoura Council is part of cosmetic reforms that don’t mean much. “Saudi celebrates another meaningless institutional development,” he tweeted. Iyad Madani, the former Saudi Minister of Information, said the inclusion of women is worth celebrating because it is a confirmation of their rights in political participation, even if they are still denied other rights like driving. As for the powers of Shoura, he said this is determined more by the performance of its members than its stated mandate.

“Reform is not necessarily a one bundle,” he said.