Credit: Saudi Gazette
The Saudi government is working to curb corruption within the state medical system, according to media reports. Here, Saudi Gazette tells of the convictions of 11 people, including doctors and health officials, scamming the health system in Madinah:
Jail, fines in Health Affairs bribe case
Abdul Hadi Al-RabaiMADINA/ TAIF – Two former officials of the Directorate of Health Affairs were fined and jailed on Tuesday in a bribery case. Three serving Health officials were fined.
Each of 11 people who bribed them got six months’ jail and a fine of SR10,000.
The Administrative Circuit in Madina sentenced the former director of Medical Licenses to five years in prison, fined him SR50,000 and ordered him to return SR353,000 he had accepted as bribe.
A retired senior Health Directorate official was sentenced to two years in prison and fined SR10, 000 for accepting bribes. The court also fined the former director of Health Affairs SR10,000 for misuse of power and the heads of Financial Affairs and Public Relations SR3,000 each for administrative corruption.
An Egyptian pharmacist and a Chadian who had offered the bribes got two-year jail terms.
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Arab News reports on the postponement of the trials of others in the city of Taif, facing similar charges:
Hearing in bribery case postponed
JEDDAH: The Court of Grievances in Jeddah has postponed to Dec. 23 the hearing on Taif’s largest bribery case involving 26 government officials and businessmen.
The court has been looking into the case for the last two years after the Control and Investigation Commission handed over the suspects for trial after completing investigations.
One of the suspects, a municipality employee, had confessed to taking SR180,000 in bribes for giving a license to a building that had not fulfilled the stipulated conditions.
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All sorts of amazing news coming out of Saudi Arabia today! Here, as reported by Arab News, the Saudi Ministry of Education has pulled the books of Sayyid Qutb, ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, from Saudi school libraries. The Ministry points out that Qutb’s books are too easily misinterpreted and can lead students toward ‘deviancy’, i.e. religious extremism.
This is going to cause major heartburn among some Saudi religious conservatives, those who back the Muslim Brotherhood’s view of the world, and, I would suspect, Sayyid Qutb’s brother Mohammed, who teaches at King Abdulaziz University.
Qutb books banned in school libraries
Hayat Al-Ghamdi | Arab NewsABHA: The Ministry of Education recently ordered the removal of two books from school libraries because of the extremist ideas they contained.
“The books, ‘The Lies About Sayyid Qutb’ and ‘The Jihad in the Way of God,’ are banned from school libraries because of their extremist and confusing ideas that may misinform students,” Abdul Rahman Al-Fasil, director general of Boys Education Administration in Asir province, told Arab News yesterday.
Ibrahim Al-Hamdan, director general of the Girls Education Administration in Baha, said the ban on the two books was aimed at protecting the young students from deviant ideology.
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Asharq Alawsat reports on the resumption of flights by British Airways between London and Riyadh and Jeddah. The piece cites increased business but strangely fails to note that the flights stopped as a result of the fear of terrorism. Back in 2003, after the bombings of residential compounds in Riyadh, BA stopped having flight crews overnight in the Kingdom. Flights would arrive from the UK, but the crews would continue on to a new stop in Cyprus, where crews would change. The exiting crews, having reached the legal limits for working hours, would stay in Nicosia.
This arrangement, in addition to inconveniencing passengers, added considerable expense to the flights. Now, the safety situation has improved to the point where BA can once again overnights crews in the Kingdom. I suspect that BA also got tired of seeing British Midlands airlines and Saudia getting all the profit from non-stop flights between the two countries.
BA to Resume Saudi Arabia Flights
LONDON, (AP) – British Airways PLC said Wednesday that it will resume flights to Saudi Arabia from London in March after a four year break, citing the increasing importance of the oil market.
BA said it plans to provide five flights a week from London’s Heathrow Airport to both Jeddah and Riyadh.
The carrier had suspended services on those routes in March 2005 because of poor commercial performance.
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Asharq Alawsat picks up the story of how the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice seem to equate foreign things, including fashion, with evil and moral degeneracy. That’s an interesting way to look at things, I guess, but wildly mistaken. Hair styles and clothing fashions seem to be upsetting a lot of the religious police. They see them as one of the steps down the slippery slope of moral corruption, not because there’s anything inherently bad about them, but solely because they are foreign to Saudi Arabia.
This attitude is uncannily similar to that of Christians expressed in the lyrics of the hymn ‘Give Me That Old Time Religion’. It takes a snapshot of a particular period of time and place (here, the 7th C. Arabia) and deems it perfect, something to be emulated for all time. It ignores, utterly, the fact that even 7th C. Arabia was a complicated place with varying thoughts and practices.
It also shows a high level of hubris to think that foreign things are evil while still using automobiles, phones, and the Internet to promote reactionary thoughts.
Perhaps if the Commission stopped to think, rather than react, it might become a better integrated body in Saudi Arabian society.
Saudi Religious Police Troubled by Youth Fashion Trends
Khaled al OweiganRiyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat – The Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice is looking into a number of customs it believes to be “foreign” as part of study that it will embark upon in cooperation with King Saud University in Riyadh.
Sources close to the Committee told Asharq Al-Awsat that the study will focus on a number of observations that it made related to the way that Saudi youths dress, cut their hair and the kind of accessories that they wear.
According to sources, the study adopts creating new methods and objectives to guide youths as well as new methods of giving advice upon which the fieldworkers of the Committee base their work.
The Committee will bear the full cost of the study that will be conducted by the National Centre for Youth Studies at King Saud University in a bid to explore various mechanisms to tackle some of the Committee’s problems as it has been heavily criticized by local residents over the past few years.
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This is a huge step for the Saudi government and not an easy one to take. According to this Arab News report, there was heated debate in the Shoura Council over the issue. One side claimed that raising the age regularized the system and brought the Kingdom into compliance with international standards. The other, arguing from the weight of history and religion, claimed that physical signs of sexual maturity were the defining characteristics of adulthood.
The ramifications of this decision are manifold. It will affect things like criminal prosecution and capital punishment. How it affects rules, laws, and customs regarding marriage are yet to be discovered.
JEDDAH: The Shoura Council has passed legislation raising the age of adulthood from 15 to 18 amid strong opposition from the council’s president and some members, Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported yesterday.
A total of 93 members supported the amendment, which defined adulthood as starting at the age of 18. According to the daily, the Islamic, Judicial and Child Rights Committee tried hard to maintain the signs of puberty or the age of 15 as the beginning of adulthood.
The age of adulthood has been a topic of debate among Islamic scholars for a long time. Some of them consider showing signs of manhood or menstruation as the end of childhood.
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MEMRI takes credit for spurring a lively debate on the fatuous fatwa concerning Mickey Mouse. The arguments are worth reading as it shows that moderates (which MEMRI tendentiously calls ‘reformers’) are pushing back against extreme interpretations of Islam. Whether this debate is due to MEMRI’s role in publicizing the fatwa is, well, debatable. But the debate is a good sign that reason has a chance to prevail in forming a definition of global Islam.
In the latest of his controversial statements and fatwas, well-known Saudi Islamist lecturer and author Sheikh Muhammad Al-Munajid stated, on Al-Majd TV on August 27, 2008, that mice were Satan’s soldiers and that “according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases” (to view the clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1850.htm ; to read the transcript, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1850.htm ). Sheikh Al-Munajid, who frequently appears on Saudi TV channels, was a former member of the staff of the Saudi Embassy Islamic Affairs Department in Washington, D.C., but was stripped of his diplomatic credentials. [1]
MEMRI’s translation of Al-Munajid’s statements, which was quickly picked up by the international media, became part of the ongoing dispute between hard-line clerics and reformers in the Arab world.Additionally, the widespread western attention to his statement forced Al-Munajid to defend and clarify his statements. In a November 6, 2008 interview on Iqra TV, he insisted that he had “never issued a fatwa about the killing of Mickey Mouse,” and complained about MEMRI’s translation and release of clips of his statements on this and other matters (to view the MEMRI TV clip of this interview, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1912.htm ). Previously, on September 4, 2008, in an interview with Alarabiya.net, he discussed his statements and complained about MEMRI; and on September 29, 2008, he posted his own YouTube video, in response MEMRI.
In the Arab world, the Saudi daily Al-Madina published a lengthy article citing Saudi Islamic scholars who defended Al-Munajid and claimed that MEMRI had distorted his words, just as the Jews and the Christians had falsified scripture. One of the scholars also proposed establishing an organization to counter MEMRI.
In contrast, Egyptian Mufti ‘Ali Gum’a called for a halt to the issuing of bizarre fatwas, saying that they damaged Islam and Muslims, and also called for the establishment of a body for fatwa oversight. [2] Senior Saudi cleric Sheikh ‘Abd Al-Muhsin Al-’Obikan also called for the establishment of a fatwa oversight body; while he did not specifically mention Al-Munajid’s Mickey Mouse statements, he said that such a body had become necessary because in the modern world, fatwas quickly find their way into the global media and raise a storm.
Liberal columnists in the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and in the Saudi and Gulf press, as well as liberal Arab websites, accused Al-Munajid of making Islam look ridiculous, and decried the flood of controversial fatwas of the past few years. The Syrian poet Adonis, in an interview with the Algerian Al-Nahar daily, said that Islam today was about “how to issue fatwas about Mickey Mouse and how to make licit the killing of Mickey Mouse,” and added that “Islam is no longer directed to the heart and the soul.” [3] Sami Al-Behiri, a columnist for the Arab liberal e-journal Elaph, said that Al-Munajid had a life-denying mentality that breeds terrorism. Al-Behiri also conducted a mock interview with “Mickey Mouse”; in it, the latter complained that the threats against him had made him into another Salman Rushdie.
Following are excerpts from Sheikh Al-Munajid’s November 6 interview on Iqra TV and September 24 interview on Alarabiya.net, and some of the reactions in the Arab press to his statements about Mickey Mouse:
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Saudi Gazette reports on the largest bribery case to hit the Saudi courts. It involves some 26 people, most of them municipal employees in Taif. While the paper refrains from naming the individuals involved, I hope that it will do so following the verdicts. Fines and even jail sentences are lesser punishments than the shame that would follow being named.
Verdict likely today on big bribery case
Abdul Hadi Al-RabeiTAIF – The verdict in the largest bribery case to be heard by courts in Saudi Arabia is expected to be pronounced Tuesday.
The Board of Grievances in Taif is expected to rule against 26 people, 24 of them municipality civil servants in Taif. They stand accused of accepting bribes thought to be in the region of SR100,000.
Bribery cases in the Kingdom increased by 15 percent in 2007 with over 500 cases reported in Riyadh alone, according to an Interior Ministry report.
Saudi anti-corruption laws stipulate severe punishment against those who receive bribes, stating that employees who accept gifts or promises to perform any duties face 10 years imprisonment or fines of up to one million riyals.
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Now fully part of the global economy, Saudi Arabia cannot avoid all of the problems that are racking that economy. The government has stepped in to reduce taxes on investors in six of the less-developed provinces of Saudi Arabia in order to make investments (both foreign and domestic) more attractive.
Investors in six provinces offered tax concessions
P.K. Abdul Ghafour I Arab NewsJEDDAH: The Council of Ministers yesterday decided to provide tax concessions to investors in the provinces of Hail, Northern Border, Jizan, Najran, Al-Baha and Al-Jouf for a period of 10 years, Culture and Information Minister Iyad Madani said.
“A 50 percent tax cut has been offered on the annual cost of training Saudis and another 50 percent tax cut on annual salaries paid to Saudis,” Madani said after the weekly Cabinet meeting at Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah. A company should invest not less than SR1 million and employ no fewer than five Saudis in basic technical and administrative jobs for a year in order to benefit from the tax cut.
The Cabinet meeting, chaired by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, stressed that the government would take necessary measures to ensure economic stability and protect the country’s financial institutions from the fallout of the global financial crisis.
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And while the economic crisis has plenty of losers, it also provides opportunities to win. Arab News reports that decreased demand has resulted in lower wholesale prices on products. That is being reflected in lower prices on the retail level, too, starting with Saudi fast food outlets.
Major fast food chain slashes prices, others likely to follow suit
Arab News has a summary of news concerning the Sirius Star, the Saudi supertanker seized by pirates in the Indian Ocean. It reports no change in the ransom demand, which remains at $25 million. The pirates warn against any acts to recover the ship by force and note that they change its location regularly. The Saudi Cabinet of Ministers talked about ways to curb piracy while the Arab League talked about forming a joint Arab naval force. The last is perhaps useful if it can get Arab navies to seriously cooperate, but as it’s an Arab League initiative, I doubt that it will lead to anything.
Cabinet vows to curb surge in pirate attacks
Samir Al-Saadi I Arab NewsJEDDAH: The Council of Ministers yesterday expressed deep concern over the surge in pirate attacks along the coast of Somalia. It was reacting to the hijacking of Saudi Aramco supertanker, the Sirius Star, by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on Nov. 15.
“The Cabinet meeting, chaired by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, discussed various measures to curb such criminal activities,” Culture and Information Minister Iyad Madani told the Saudi Press Agency.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Amr Moussa took a similar line. He said Arab countries should deploy their own naval forces to fight the escalating piracy in the Horn of Africa.
“There should be a joint Arab force based on the letter and spirit of the Arab conventions,” Moussa told reporters, referring to the Arab League’s defense pact. “Piracy is affecting the Arab countries’ security, interests and their economies.”
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The New York Times reports on the all-female Saudi rock band The AccoLade. I don’t know that this is the first all-girl band in the Kingdom, but it’s certainly the first to get international news coverage! You can listen to one of their songs at the above link.
UPDATE: I’m informed that AccoLade is not the first all-girl rock band in Saudi Arabia. That honor goes to Chicks Behind Walls. Thanks to ‘Keystone’ for the information. ‘Keystone’ also reminds that finding public venues is difficult even for male bands in the Kingdom. There’s a strange interpretation of Islam held by some (many?) that music is forbidden in Islam, outside of tribal drumming anyway.
As Taboos Ease, Saudi Girl Group Dares to Rock
ROBERT F. WORTHJIDDA, Saudi Arabia — They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.
But the members of Saudi Arabia’s first all-girl rock band, the Accolade, are clearly not afraid of taboos.
The band’s first single, “Pinocchio,” has become an underground hit here, with hundreds of young Saudis downloading the song from the group’s Web site. Now, the pioneering foursome, all of them college students, want to start playing regular gigs — inside private compounds, of course — and recording an album.
“In Saudi, yes, it’s a challenge,” said the group’s lead singer, Lamia, who has piercings on her left eyebrow and beneath her bottom lip. (Like other band members, she gave only her first name.) “Maybe we’re crazy. But we wanted to do something different.”
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It may be self-serving for a Saudi newspaper to point out that other religions have their own extremists who carry out terrorist acts. It is also true, however.
Saudi Gazette runs this Reuters report on Indian concern over home-grown, Hindu extremists who target not only Muslims, but Christians as well. And, as with Islamic-inspired terrorism, it’s not all about religion. It incorporates political issues, both international and local, but uses religion as a tool inspire followers and frighten those following other religions. Eventually, people will figure out that religion and politics should not be mixed. The combination is volatile and can become uncontrollable.
India wonders how deep ‘Hindu terrorism’ goes
Bappa MajumdarREPORTS that Hindu militants may be involved in bomb attacks first blamed on Islamists may open a Pandora’s Box for India’s beleaguered security services and become a key voter issue before general elections next year.
At least 10 people, including a serving army officer and a Hindu monk and nun, have been arrested over alleged involvement in blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in western Maharashtra state that killed four people.
The same Indian army officer is being investigated over a bomb attack in February 2007 that killed 68 people on the Samjhauta Express, a train between Delhi and Lahore, police said. The attack killed mostly Pakistani passengers.
The reports have proved an embarrassment for the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as it prepares to take on the Congress-led government in both state elections this year and general elections in early 2009.
The BJP has been quick to criticize the Congress-led government for being soft on terrorism when it involves Muslims or Pakistan, but critics say it has been less willing to call for a clampdown on Hindu groups in the face of the latest allegations.
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UPDATE: The Washington Post has this article on the arrest and pending trial of Hindu nationalists accused of taking part in the bombing of a Muslim area of Malegaon, India during Ramadan, earlier this year. The article notes that some Hindus are objecting to the term ‘Hindu terrorism’ and ask that it be changed to ‘Hindutva terrorism’, stressing the politicized nationalism of the Hindutva movement. Anti-Muslim and anti-Christian terrorism aren’t new in India. Religion has been politicized—arguably since the Separation in 1947 and the creation of a Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. Whether it is the murder of Christian missionaries and nuns or the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, there has been too much temptation to use the power of religion to score political points.