Saudi Gazette reports on the visit to the KSA by Iraq’s national security advisor who said that six Saudis, including one wanted by Saudi authorities for terrorism-related activities, were returned by Iraqis authorities. He also said that the Iraqi government has been providing information on terror financing to the Saudi government. The widely-reported prevalence of Saudis among foreign fighters in Iraq and the cloudy question of Saudis financing the insurrections in Iraq have long troubled US-Saudi relations, at least on a public level.

Iraq hands over six Saudis

RIYADH – Iraq has repatriated six Saudis, one of whom was wanted by security authorities in his country, Iraq’s national security adviser said in remarks published Thursday.

The six were handed over Monday, Muwaffak Rubaie, who visited Riyadh this week, told Arabic language dailies Asharq Al-Awsat and Al-Hayat.

Rubaie said the Iraqi government did not have proof that the six extradited this week had committed any offense. However, after they were handed over, it turned out that one of them was wanted by Saudi authorities, who have been battling suspected Al-Qaeda militants for five years.

“This is the first batch we have handed over to the Kingdom and will study ways of verifying the identities of the remaining detainees and their repatriation,” he said.

Rubaie said the Iraqi government was holding “less than 100” Saudis, who had all been put on trial and convicted.

US-led coalition forces in turn are holding “less than 50 Saudi detainees,” he added.
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As Saudi Arabia continues moves to diversify its economy, it’s also taking advantage of a resource more plentiful than oil: sunlight. This piece from Saudi Gazette reports on the plans to construct its first commercial solar energy plant near the north western city of Jubail—which is also a main oil export terminal.

Kingdom to build solar energy plant

JUBAIL – Swicorp Joussour Company, a Saudi joint stock company capitalized at SR2.67 billion ($712 million) launched by Swicorp, announced that it has partnered with Chemical Development Company (CDC) of Saudi Arabia, and NorSun of Norway to invest in the construction of a polysilicon plant in the industrial city of Jubail.

NorSun will initially own 50 percent of the shareholding in the company, with Swicorp Joussour and CDC holding the balance. The transaction is aligned with Swicorp Joussour Company’s focus on energy and energy-intensive industries that leverage the competitive advantages of the region.

This project has attracted two top tier companies to the region, NorSun and SunPower, both of which will be off-takers of the project. Commercial production is planned to commence in 2010 with an initial capacity of 3,000 metric tons per year.

… In the Middle East, alternative energy is a new area of interest, which has gained recent attention due to the pressing need for economies to look toward diversified energy sources for future generations.

Ibrahim Al-Humaidan, president of CDC, said: “Harnessing diversified sources of energy is critical to the development of tomorrow’s economies. We are proud to be involved in launching with our partners the first plant of its kind, creating a nucleus for the solar industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
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Christian Science Monitor runs this editorial on human rights in Saudi Arabia. It’s right that the pace is slow and that governmental actions seem indirect. Both of those facts are simple facts in the Kingdom. Some of it can be attributed to inertia; some of it can be attributed to fear of the consequences of directly confronting a strong religious establishment. But a large part of it can be attributed to the basic Saudi desire to avoid confrontation of any type whenever possible. Saudi Arabia is a socially conservative society, not just a religiously conservative one. Change takes time and rulers do not hold (contrary to popular belief) absolute power through which they can effect change with the issuing of a royal decree. The government, in fact, can do very little without getting buy-in from powerful interest groups in the Kingdom, including the religious establishment.

The editorial is worth reading as it does note that the King is working actively to effect real reform. I think it misses out, though, in failing to take into account the true limits of his ability to act unilaterally.

Arabian rights
Saudi Arabia’s king is trying to reform his society, but his moves are painfully slow

Saudi Arabia’s king, who also serves as guardian of the birthplace of Islam, could become Islam’s chief reformer. This week, for instance, King Abdullah stunned the world’s Jews and Christians with a call for a conference of the three main monotheistic faiths in order “to defend humanity.”

The king says he was given a green light for such a dialogue from the country’s powerful Muslim clerics. If so, the clerics may want to explain why they still ban non-Muslims from practicing their faith. And so deep is intolerance of “infidels” by the country’s official Muslim hierarchy that a recent proposal to ban the preachers from bigoted ridicule of other religions was shot down by a consultative council to the king.

The king’s move to reach out to Christians and Jews may be one more attempt to indirectly circumvent hard-line Islamic scholars with reforms. Many of those scholars still stir up hatred of non-Muslims in their teachings and create an export of jihadists – despite efforts by the king to rein them in. Ever since the 9/11 attacks – 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia – Western pressure has increased on the House of Saud to combat these terrorist breeding camps. In fact, one rationale for the US invasion of Iraq was to wake up Middle East leaders to combat the roots of militant Islam in their societies.
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‘Arab Insight’, formerly ‘Saudi Debate’, offers this report on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia [The link is to a 7-page PDF document].

Needless to say, it’s not a pretty picture. But it’s not uniformly bleak, either. Asmaa Al-Mohamed points out that Saudi women are utterly capable; it’s Saudi men who have problems dealing with them, not they dealing with men. She finds some glimmers of hope and sees some improvements, but finds them erratic and not sustained. Worth reading.

Saudi Women’s Rights
Stuck at a Red Light
ASMAA AL-MOHAMED
Journalist and Women’s Rights Activist; Online Editor for Al Arabiya; Saudi Arabia

PERHAPS NOWHERE IN THE WORLD do women lead a stranger life than in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi women constantly endure being treated like secondclass citizens, even as men refer to them as “well-kept pearls and hidden treasures.” Despite everything said about the importance of women, women’s rights are still a chink in the Saudi state’s armor, and one of the most hotly debated, yet murkiest, topics in the country. It is difficult to even prioritize the long list of challenges facing Saudi women, which range from their political and legal disenfranchisement, to their curtailed liberties and restraints imposed by their legal guardians. The humanitarian crises facing women in Saudi Arabia are extreme and there is often limited recourse for women who have suffered sexual abuse or rape. However, this article will primarily focus on those offenses that are permissible, not just in practice, but also under the
Saudi legal framework.
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The Washington Post runs an interesting and useful article about sovereign wealth funds, investment funds owned by nations that invest in the industries and services of other nations. A combination of protectionism and a certain level of paranoia about Arabs seems to be fueling concern that the investing countries are out to undermine the US economy. Not so, say the managers of the funds, including that of the new Saudi fund that will make close to $1 trillion in foreign investments.

Oddly, I haven’t heard much complaint about the investment strategies of US funds which invest both domestically and abroad, with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend…

Foreign Wealth Funds Defend U.S. Investments
Profit, Not Politics, Is Motive, Officials Say
Ariana Eunjung Cha

KUWAIT CITY — It was not Bader al-Saad’s idea to buy huge chunks of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.

It was early January and Saad, managing director of one of the world’s largest investment funds, was in his office as usual, reviewing potential deals in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region, when the banks asked him to invest, he recalled.

“They called us. . . . We receive calls on most transactions,” said Saad, whose fund bought stakes of $3 billion in Citigroup and $2 billion in Merrill Lynch.

The increasing pace of acquisitions in the United States by sovereign wealth funds such as Saad’s Kuwait Investment Authority is raising concern about their goals and motivations. Run by nation-states to invest their government revenues, the funds are estimated to control $2.5 trillion and are projected to have $12 trillion by 2015. The six Arab states on the Persian Gulf’s western shore, which control nearly a quarter of the world’s oil supply, provided more than half of the money currently in the funds, according to Morgan Stanley.

At one extreme, the funds have been characterized as saviors, propping up the struggling U.S. economy with capital infusions. At the other, there are fears that their investments could turn political, that the funds could buy stakes in entities that could someday be used to compromise the security of the United States while furthering their national interests.

Saad and other fund managers from the Persian Gulf region say their investments are purely commercial and are made with one goal in mind: profit. They express exasperation that they are attacked for providing money that U.S. companies ask for.

“Why is everybody after sovereign wealth funds? What have they done? Did they misbehave in any country where they invested in? . . . All they are talking about is a fear of something that did not happen and will not happen,” said Saad, whose fund is estimated to be worth $213 billion.

Muhammad al-Jasser of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, which is forming a fund that may exceed $900 billion to become the world’s largest, has said that “it’s like the sovereign wealth funds are guilty until proven innocent.” Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, head of Dubai World, which manages a $8 billion sovereign wealth fund, has warned critics in Western countries that if their money is not welcome, there are plenty of other places to invest.
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Writing in Arab News Abeer Mishkhas points out that if you are going to have inter-religion dialogue, you cannot demagogue the the conversation before it even starts. She takes to task the Saudi Shoura Council members who shot down a proposal to promote the respect of all religions as well as the sheikh who issued a fatwa calling for the death of two journalists calling for more freedom to discuss religion in the Kingdom

Of Fatwas and Infidels
Abeer Mishkhas, abeermishkhas@arabnews.com

The Shoura Council last week defeated a proposal to adopt a law promoting respect for other religions and religious symbols. The proposal that would have had the blessings of the Arab League was opposed by 77 members and supported by 33.

In his reason for voting against the proposal, one member told Al-Watan newspaper that the negative effects might outweigh the positive ones as it would give legality to nonmonotheistic religions and consequently it would allow the building of houses of worship for those religions in Muslim countries.

The proposal was surely influenced by the Danish cartoon crisis that recently resurfaced. If we look at the consequences of approving such a proposal, we will see that it would have been an important step forward. It simply proposes respect for other religions and tolerance for those who practice them. The proposal suggests simply that people in the world need to learn to live together and to accept each other for what they are and that people must also remember that respect and tolerance work both ways.
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Christian Science Monitor has this story about the work the Saudi Human Rights Commission tries to perform in a country not noted for its tradition of civil rights. The article mentions recent reports by the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) critical of Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system [146-page PDF], that system’s treatment of minors [82-page PDF], and the exploitation of migrant labor [HTML page only].

Saudi Arabia: slowly opening dialog about human rights
A Saudi commission cites progress on rights awareness. Still, a Human Rights Watch report Tuesday enumerated ongoing abuses, including arbitrary arrests and lack of legal counsel
Caryle Murphy

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Seated at an enormous white desk four floors above King Fahd Road’s swiftly moving morning traffic, Turki al-Sudairy dialed the number of a deeply worried woman.

“She was in very bad shape when she called me,” Mr. Sudairy related, describing Fatma Bishri as distraught because she had not heard from her husband since his arrest for allegedly attempting to join the Iraqi insurgency.

When Ms. Bishri answered, Sudairy soothingly assured her that he had spoken with prison officials, who approved a call, and that she would hear from her husband within hours. He hung up, noting that “she sounds better now.”

Delivering such small consolations is part of Sudairy’s job as president of Saudi Arabia’s two-year-old Human Rights Commission. Formed by a royal decree of King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, the 24-member commission is a governmental body charged with monitoring the kingdom’s compliance with human rights standards.

Its creation was part of the monarch’s reformist agenda, which is trying to introduce some political and social changes while ruffling as few feathers as possible among the kingdom’s substantial conservative constituency of both clerics and ordinary folk.
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Conservative Muslims in America—like many conservative Christians—hold skeptical views of public school education in the US. In addition to the curriculum, public schools also teach (sometimes unwanted) lessons about contemporary life, good and bad. Like their Christian (and secular) counterparts, they find a solution in home schooling. This report by Neil MacFarquhar in the International Herald Tribune explains.

Muslims in U.S. turn to home schooling
Neil MacFarquhar

LODI, California: Like dozens of other Pakistani-American girls here, Hajra Bibi stopped attending the local public school when she reached puberty and began studying at home.

Her family wanted her to clean and cook for her male relatives and had also worried that other American children would mock both her Muslim religion and her traditional clothes.

“Some men don’t like it when you wear American clothes – they don’t think it is a good thing for girls,” said Bibi, 17, now studying at the 12th-grade level in this agricultural center some 70 miles, or about 110 kilometers, east of San Francisco. “You have to be respectable.”

Across the United States, Muslims who find that a public school education clashes with their religious or cultural traditions have turned to home schooling. That choice is intended partly as a way to build a solid Muslim identity away from the prejudices that their children, boys and girls alike, can face in schoolyards. But in some cases, as in Bibi’s, the intent is also to isolate their adolescent and teenage daughters from the corrupting influences that they see in much of American life.
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At least some religious leaders are taking King Abdullah’s proposal for inter-faith dialogue seriously, reports this Associated Press piece. I suspect the main problems will be with inflexible religious conservatives in Saudi Arabia who seem to prefer verses in the Quran that defame other religions over those that stress tolerance. But Abdullah’s call is utterly consistent with his efforts to promote tolerance in Saudi Arabia.

See this International Herald Tribune piece on King Abdullah’s call: Saudi king calls for dialogue among different religions

Religious Leaders Welcome Saudi Proposal
LILY HINDY

NEW YORK — Several Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders reacted warmly to a proposal for dialogue among the religions by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, welcoming the overture from the leader of the strict Muslim country as a major development in interfaith relations.

Specifics of the initiative, including whether Israelis could take part, remained unclear _ leading some to caution against too much optimism. Abdullah’s proposal comes at a time of stalled peace negotiations and heightened Middle East tension. It also comes amid Muslim anger over cartoons published in Europe seen as insulting the Prophet Muhammad and in the wake of the pope’s controversial baptism of a prominent Muslim convert.

But Abdullah said Saudi Arabia’s top clerics gave him a green light _ crucial in a society that bans non-Muslim religious services. Saudi Arabia, which follows a severe interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism, is also home to Islam’s two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina.

“The idea is to ask representatives of all monotheistic religions to sit together with their brothers in faith and sincerity to all religions as we all believe in the same God,” the king said Monday night in Riyadh at a seminar on “Culture and the Respect of Religions.”
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I commend the efforts of Mouath Abu Adam, an American, to save the life of a Saudi citizen. He is helping to raise the blood money demanded by the family of a victim killed by that citizen. Rather than hectoring, he’s providing not only good deeds, but an excellent example of how Islam can be a generous and merciful religion.

American donates to save citizen’s life
Saad Al-Bahes

DAMMAM – Muslim American resident Mouath Abu Adam donated money to a fundraising campaign to save the life of a Saudi citizen.

Fawzi Al-Khaldi was sentenced to death for killing a fellow citizen five years ago over a land dispute. The family of the victim asked for SR15 million in blood money to save Fawzi from beheading.

Fawzi’s tribe has raised SR5 million so far from Al-Jouf region alone.

Mouath said that he has contributed to the campaign to represent the message of ‘takatuf’ or united cooperation to do good among

Muslims, according to the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

Sheikhs have praised Muath for his good deeds.

The continuing case of ‘Fatima’, the Saudi woman forceably divorced from her husband due to her brothers’ view that he was beneath her in tribal status, has taken a new turn. According to Arab News, she has decided to go on a hunger strike to protest the inaction of authorities on this case which began in 2005. While the Saudi Human Rights Commission declares that the problem will be resolved in her favor ‘soon’, she’s tired of waiting.

Fatima Starts Hunger Strike Despite HRC’s Reunion Assurances
Ebtihal Mubarak, Arab News

JEDDAH, 25 March 2008 — A Saudi woman, who was forcibly divorced from her husband by a court in 2005 at the request of her half brothers, yesterday began the first day of a hunger strike despite officials saying that the couple would soon be reunited.

“I won’t believe it till I see it… I’ll remain stuck in this shelter like an outcaste. Everyone asks me to be patient and wait,” said the woman known as Fatima.

“Three years have passed now. I’m human at the end of the day and there is a limit to what I can put up with,” she told Arab News in a phone conversation, adding that no one understands what she was going through.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the government-run Human Rights Commission (HRC) gave assurances that the couple would be reunited. “The couple will soon be reunited,” said Zuhair Al-Harithy, HRC spokesman, without giving a timeframe.

“Fatima and Mansour’s case is a HRC priority and gets the special attention of HRC President Turki Al-Sudairi,” he said, adding that Al-Sudairi has been in conversation about the issue with high-ranking government officials.
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Papers around the world are picking up on the statement by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal that interfaith dialogues must be undertaken. Arab News reports on the comments he made at the start of a conference on Japanese-Islamic relations.

Haaretz newspaper from Israel notes the remarks as well: Saudi King plans first interfaith conference to include Jews

Interfaith dialogues—actually, any dialogue—depends on all participants to keep their ears and minds open to ideas, not to come it with dogmatic assertions of faith that leave nothing to be discussed. I think that is possible here, but it is not going to be easy. Some will be criticized for merely taking part in such an endeavor.

Saud Calls for More Inter-Faith Dialogue
Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Arab News

RIYADH, 25 March 2008 — Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal called for holding more dialogues among different religions and cultures at a time when anger continues to simmer in the Muslim world following Western attacks on Islam and its scriptures.

“Rather than retreating from the challenges, different groups should enter into honest dialogue with people who hold different beliefs,” said Prince Saud in a speech read out by Nizar Obaid Madani, minister of state for foreign affairs, at a seminar in Riyadh on Sunday night. “The collaboration among religious communities can help sustain humane relations and contribute to the eradication of racism and differences.”

The prince said: “Inter-religious dialogue offers the hope of genuine mutual enrichment that can provide us with the resources necessary to confront conflicts.”

The call was made at the inaugural session of a dialogue between “Japan and the Islamic world,” organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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