Comments on: Dem. Candidates Thump Saudi Justice http://xrdarabia.org/2007/11/21/dem-candidates-thump-saudi-justice/ Informed comment and commentary about Saudi Arabia, reform, and its relations with the US Wed, 23 May 2012 23:26:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: John Burgess http://xrdarabia.org/2007/11/21/dem-candidates-thump-saudi-justice/comment-page-1/#comment-7430 John Burgess Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:12:21 +0000 http://xrdarabia.org/2007/11/21/dem-candidates-thump-saudi-justice/#comment-7430 daveinboca: Whenever anything untoward happens in the EP, the fact of sectarian differences has to be considered. I'm told by Saudis that both the victims and the perpetrators were Shi'a; the judges, likely Sunni. So it's a possibility. I don't think you can use the differences between Jeddah and any other Saudi city as indicative of much though. Jeddah is just very different, far more liberal, and with a complex and lengthy history and culture of its own. A better comparison might be with Dammam. I do'nt know when you were last in the KSA, but things have at least marginally improved in Qatif. They've greatly improved relative to 1979. They had already started to improve by 1981, when I went first to Qatif. daveinboca: Whenever anything untoward happens in the EP, the fact of sectarian differences has to be considered. I’m told by Saudis that both the victims and the perpetrators were Shi’a; the judges, likely Sunni. So it’s a possibility.

I don’t think you can use the differences between Jeddah and any other Saudi city as indicative of much though. Jeddah is just very different, far more liberal, and with a complex and lengthy history and culture of its own. A better comparison might be with Dammam.

I do’nt know when you were last in the KSA, but things have at least marginally improved in Qatif. They’ve greatly improved relative to 1979. They had already started to improve by 1981, when I went first to Qatif.

]]> By: daveinboca http://xrdarabia.org/2007/11/21/dem-candidates-thump-saudi-justice/comment-page-1/#comment-7415 daveinboca Thu, 22 Nov 2007 06:39:36 +0000 http://xrdarabia.org/2007/11/21/dem-candidates-thump-saudi-justice/#comment-7415 Qatif is a largely Shi'ite town which experienced a major incident of unrest in 1979. My guess is that the Saudi Sunni establishment could possibly be behind the judge's ruling. I doubt if this kind of sentence would be applied in Jidda, for instance, where I lived for several years. The application of strict punishments was always pretty lenient in Jidda while I was there. Qatif is a largely Shi’ite town which experienced a major incident of unrest in 1979. My guess is that the Saudi Sunni establishment could possibly be behind the judge’s ruling. I doubt if this kind of sentence would be applied in Jidda, for instance, where I lived for several years. The application of strict punishments was always pretty lenient in Jidda while I was there.

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