MEMRI provides an encapsulated look at the arguments raging within Saudi Arabia over the limits of free speech. The piece summarizes the back and forth in the Saudi media that followed comments condemning satellite TV broadcasters and writers and suggesting that they were open to being killed for their ‘irreligious beliefs’.

I think MEMRI is serving a good purpose here in pointing out that Saudi Arabia is not monolithic in its religious beliefs nor in the kinds of religious intolerance to be found there. It’s one thing for foreigners to scoff at Saudi clerics and their 7th C. mentality. It’s an entirely different matter when Saudis themselves are doing the scoffing.

Extremist Sheikhs, Liberals Clash over Freedom of Expression
on Satellite Television Channels
Y. Admon

Introduction

Recently, a number of Saudi clerics have issued fatwas enjoining the public to kill owners of satellite TV channels, television show hosts, and liberal intellectuals.

On March 16, 2008, Sheikh ‘Abd Al-Rahman Al-Barak issued a fatwa accusing two liberal Saudi authors of heresy and calling to kill them. [1] On September 10, 2008, Sheikh Saleh Al-Luhaidan, head of the Saudi Supreme Judiciary Council, issued a fatwa sanctioning the killing of satellite TV channel owners if they persisted in airing “inappropriate” programming that is morally corrupting. [2]

Four days later, member of the Supreme Judiciary Council Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan Al-Fawzan issued a fatwa calling to kill the hosts of astrology programs on television, since, in his opinion, they “practice black magic - which Islam regards as a crime whose perpetrators must be put to death by the sword, and whose bodies must not be wept over.” [3]

A few days later, Sheikh Abdullah bin Jibrin, a former member of the Directorate of Religious Research, Islamic Legal Rulings, and Islamic Propagation and Guidance, called for the firing, excommunication, and flogging of intellectuals who disparage and humiliate clerics in their articles and television interviews.

Bin Jibrin’s call was a response to a debate between Ssaudi liberal ‘Abdallah bin Bakhit and Saudi Council of Senior Clerics member Salah bin Fawzan Al-Fawzan, in the pages of the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah. As part of the debate, bin Bakhit wrote an article accusing clerics of encouraging extremism and terrorism through fatwas that prompted young people to wage jihad. [4] Bin Bakhit’s statements were supported by other Arab columnists, who contended that not only was the Saudi religious establishment encouraging extremism and terrorism, but that it was also seeking to curb freedom of expression.

Some of clerics’ fatwas were also condemned by senior religious officials, such as Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abd-Al-’Aziz Aal Al-Sheikh and Shura Council member and Justice Ministry advisor Sheikh ‘AbdAl-Muhsin Al-’Obikan, as well as by a Saudi Justice Ministry member, a Shura Council member, and numerous Arab intellectuals and columnists

Following are some reactions to the fatwas, from Saudi and other Arab newspapers: