The US Consulate in Jeddah closed down its visa service in 2004, following a terrorist attack that killed five local employees. Now, with plans for the construction of a new Consulate underway and planned to open early next year in a new location, the current Consulate will reopen its doors for limited visa interviews and issuance. If nothing else, this will save at least some Saudis the travel to and from Riyadh where they’ve had to go for the past few years. Arab News has the story:
US Consulate starts partial visa services
Sultan Al-Tamimi I Arab NewsJEDDAH: The US Consulate in Jeddah announced yesterday that it would resume “partial nonimmigrant visa services.”
“The Consulate General will be able to process a maximum of 300 applications per month, which represents about 10 percent of the traditional caseload in Jeddah,” said a consulate statement.
US officials will be available four days per month to conduct interviews for King Abdullah Scholarship Program recipients, exchange visitors on government-sponsored international programs, diplomats and Saudi government officials traveling on official business and employees of and representatives to international organizations. The interviews will take place on Sundays and Mondays.
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This cartoon from Saudi Gazette points out a real issue in Saudi society. Friends are expected to do things for each other. Whether that’s an exercise in ‘wasta’ to obtain a job, a permit, or some other concrete reward, or as here, just showing how well-connected one is, it creates problems. Generally, a sign saying ‘Authorized Entry Only’ has some reason behind it, whether for safety, security, or simply privacy. These signs observed as often in the breach, however, including at places like airports and government buildings. There’s not necessarily any nefarious intent behind it, but who’s to know beforehand?
Credit: Saudi Gazette
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice aren’t only a negative factor in Saudi Arabia, according to this story from Saudi Gazette/Okaz. In the instance reported, they worked to break down a family’s resistance to their daughter’s marrying the love of her life… after the Commission caught her on a date with her intended. She had bucked her family for 10 years. That’s a pretty fair gauge of the sincerity of her feelings, I guess.
The Haya ends a date with marriage
Miteb Al-AwaadHAIL – A 10-year-old love story ended with marriage when two lovers were arrested while on a date at a shopping mall in Hail by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, commonly referred to as the Haya.
The girl’s family declined a marriage proposal from the man ten years ago, but that refusal did not put out the raging fire of love between the two. After their arrest at the mall, the Haya mediated between the two families to finalize the marriage, a Haya official said.
“The Haya intervened to bring this complicated love story to a peaceful conclusion,” said Suliman Al-Rumidan, chief of the Haya Office in Hail. Public dating in Saudi Arabia is banned by the Haya. –Okaz/SG
Arab News reports on a Saudi woman who doesn’t think very much of the status quo when it comes to telling women ‘their place’. Not only does she attend soccer games incognito, but she’s also a filmmaker and aspiring anthropologist who wants to work on Bedouin affairs. Now that her cover is blown, she’ unlikely to be at future football matches. I hope her acts don’t end up putting her on some blacklist.
Soccer shocker … she is a ‘he’ in stadium
TAIF: Haya Saad Al-Sultan is a devoted fan of the Saudi Al-Ittihad footballers, so much that she has attended matches incognito, dressed as a Saudi man, according to yesterday’s Al-Watan newspaper.
“Whenever there was a football match I would find a place in the stands amidst men,” she said. “Of course, I would dress like a man wearing a thobe and other sport outfits, including black glasses, concealing all my feminine features.” Women are not allowed to attend sporting events unless they are women-only activities. To achieve such an unusual feat of attending the more popular men-only events, Haya would wrap the head scarf over her face and don large sunglasses.
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[I just noticed that this is the 5,555th post on Crossroads Arabia!]
When a foreign woman marries a Saudi man, she is also likely marrying an enormous, state-imposed problem. For a variety of reasons, none of them terribly convincing, the government of Saudi Arabia does not favor Saudi men’s marrying foreign women, on the whole. Saudi women’s marrying foreign men is even more difficult, but for another suite of reasons. Arab News reports that some Saudis—and their foreign wives—are most unhappy with the situation and are making a public fuss over it.
Stopping a Saudi man from marrying a foreigner does not mean that he’s going to say, “Oh, sure… I’ll just marry any Saudi woman who comes by!” If he is forced to marry a Saudi woman because his hopes are otherwise thwarted, that’s already a major strike against the marriage and puts it on shaky grounds. As one of the people interviewed for the article says, government should not be playing more than an administrative role when it comes to marriage.
Ministry move on mixed marriages makes many unhappy
Hassna’a Mokhtar | Arab NewsJEDDAH: When 38-year-old American Mary Jones married a Saudi in the United States 15 years ago, she did not expect that it would take two years for the Saudi government to allow her to live with her husband in Saudi Arabia.
Why two years? That’s how long it took to obtain the marriage permit from the Saudi Ministry of Interior.
From a Saudi woman’s point of view, Jones said, allowing Saudi men to marry foreigners increases the problem of spinsterhood.
“Marriage is a personal choice,” said Jones. “It’s not fair to decide for people whom they can and can’t marry. In Islam, husbands are to be chosen for excellence in religion and moral character, not for nationality.”
Last week the Ministry of Interior rejected a request by the Shoura Council for easing rules governing Saudis who marry non-Saudis. However, the ministry excluded from the rules the elderly, the disabled and people who are socially rejected.
“To allow only the elderly, outcast and disabled people to marry non-Saudis is an affront to society. It shows that we’re a non-cooperative and unbalanced community,” said 36-year-old lawyer and legal consultant Wail Joharji.
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Asharq Alawsat carries a story about a major shift in policy by Saudi Arabia’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. According to the Commission’s Director in Mecca, if a woman who is the target of a blackmail attempt reports it to the authorities, she will not be held accountable for whatever she might have done that led to the blackmail. Had this been the rule at the time of the case of ‘Qatif Girl’, she would not have gone to court other than to press her own charges. That case, involving a woman who claimed to be trying to talk a blackmailer out of his actions—which technically created a state of ‘illegal seclusion’ or khulwa–put them in a position in which they were both gang-raped. Charges against the rapists went on to court and sentencing. But she and her companion were also charged for their separate crimes. The fact that she was charged and the punishment handed down raised a furor among Saudis in 2007 and early 2008 and eventually led to her receiving a royal pardon.
This is an important turn in policy. It avoids a situation where a woman must decide which ghastly alternatives she must accept: go along with blackmail and its consequence, or seek legal protection with its own severe penalties. The Commission’s assuming that her reporting attempted blackmail will suffice to indicate her contrition is markedly liberal for this organization. It actually represents a shift in the valuation put on a woman’s word, at least in the first instance. Whether directives promulgating the policy shift gets out to the Commission members in the field and whether they follow it are entirely different matters, but we can hope for the best.
Saudi Religious Police Crackdown on Blackmail between the Sexes
Amal BaqaziJeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat- The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice [CPVPV] announced that it had monitored 65 cases of men blackmailing women with personal photographs. It deemed that the act of reporting this blackmail to the authorities, even if the girl reporting the blackmail had been involved in an illicit relationship, is a sign of repentance and therefore the girl in question does not deserve to be punished.
Director of the CPVPV in Mecca, Ahmed Qasim Al Ghamdi revealed exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat that the number of cases of young men blackmailing women with personal photographs has reached 65 in the city of Mecca alone. He pointed out that this number concerns the number of cases the CPVPV had dealt with according to various information, but that many women had refrained from filing reports.
Al Ghamdi said that the source of “the blackmail is a result of a previous relationship or the exploitation of the blackmailed party by [someone] gaining documents and information. For example some young men gain photos of women by gaining access to their mobile phones, or through mobile phones given to repair shops.”
Al Ghamdi said that the goal of blackmailing women is usually either to extort money or force the victim into prostitution.
He added that it would be unfitting to punish the woman in cases where it cannot be proven that the woman had an affair with the man. As for cases where the woman was involved in an illicit relationship with a man, then this would call for repentance on the woman’s part. However if the woman were to file a report saying that she was being blackmailed, than this would be considered a sign of repentance and therefore the woman would not deserve to be punished.
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Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that Saudi Arabia’s first female diplomat, Dr. Fatimah Abdullah Al-Saleem, has taken up her role as Cultural Attaché at the Saudi Embassy in Ottawa, Canada. Having female diplomats has long been a goal of Saudi Foreign Minister Pr. Saud Al-Faisal. There are a number of Saudi women currently in training for other diplomatic assignments.
First Saudi woman diplomat takes charge
OTTAWA – Ministry of Higher Education has delegated Dr. Fatimah Abdullah Al-Saleem, a Saudi academician, to work as a first woman in the cultural attaché in the Saudi Embassy in Canada.
Dr. Al-Saleem has joined the embassy after getting a royal approval on her appointment.
She said her appointment is a proof that Saudi women are second to none in taking up sensitive responsibilities for the country.
Before her assignment here, she had taught at King Saud University (KSU) for 28 years. She has a bachelor’s degree with honors in sociology and a master’s degree from the same university. She got her Ph.D from the American University in Washington D.C. – Okaz/SG
Writing in Arab News, Saudi journalist Abeer Mishkhas reports on the debate Saudi society is having with itself over the issue of child marriage. Religious authorities seem to fall on both sides of the issue. Last month, one cleric went on record to declare marriages of 10- or 12-year-old girls not only authorized by religion, but necessary to ensure ‘fairness’ to the girls. Here, another says that it cannot be religiously approved because it lacks the vital element of the woman’s consent. While the Ministry of Health, which has declared such marriages as ‘unhealthy’, is eager to work with others opposed to the practice, Saudi society itself is unclear on just what it does want.
According to the piece, which presents some of the arguments, society wants to protect its daughters, but it also does not want to act in ways contradictory to religion. Sorting out just what is religiously required will be key in ending the practice.
Underage marriages and HRC’s campaign
Abeer Mishkhas | abeermishkhas@arabnews.comIn its campaign against child marriage, the Human Rights Commission (HRC) worked with the Ministry of Health in the preparation of a report on the effects of underage marriages on girls. The ministry issued the report in which it warned of the physical effects on girls who married at an early age as well as on the offspring of their marriages. The report also specified the psychological effects of these marriages and said that girls who are deprived of their childhoods often end up mentally ill.
The report was given support later by a senior member of the Islamic Jurisprudence Society in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Muhammad Al-Nujaimi. In his interview with Shams newspaper — which was carried on the Al-Arabiya website — he spoke out against underage marriages from the religious point of view. He stressed that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, had said that when it comes to marriage, the bride’s consent must be obtained. Obviously, this requires that she be mature enough to think for herself that is hardly the case with an eight-year-old or one even younger.
This is an issue that has been around a long time. If underage marriage has become the current burning issue, this is not because of its novelty value but because the media have suddenly begun to concentrate on it. It is only right for religious scholars, in tandem with medical authorities, to come out and denounce the practice. Al-Nujaimi’s words target men who believe they can marry off their daughters whenever they choose — and of course collect dowries.
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After its abrupt and confusing cancellation last month, the Jeddah Economic Forum is going to be rescheduled. The situation’s no less confusing, but things seem to be getting worked out. The Chairman of the Jeddah Camber of Commerce & Industry, which sponsored the Forum, Salah Al-Turki, was relieved of his position, allegedly because he had failed to ‘follow guidelines’ over the past several years. Now, though, it appears that the 10th Forum will take in April.
JEF receives ministry approval
P.K. Abdul Ghafour | Arab NewsJEDDAH: The Jeddah Economic Forum (JEF) will be held in April this year after the minister of commerce and industry, Abdullah Zainal Alireza, gave his approval to the event after organizers postponed it last month.
An informed source at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) confirmed that it had received the minister’s approval for holding the forum in two months, but did not give an exact date for the three-day event.
Al-Madinah Arabic daily said the minister had also approved a list of international speakers, including politicians and economists. The approval will facilitate the issuance of visas for foreign delegates attending the event, the paper said.
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Saudi columnist Hussein Shobokshi writes wryly in Asharq Alawsat that Arabs seem to be too attached to their conspiracy theories. Nothing can be said without one looking for deeper reasons and a hidden hand behind it all. This tendency, he says, is what stops Arabs (as well as some others) from following the path of S. Africa as it shed its apartheid past in conscious efforts toward reconciliation. In their quest for the ‘truth’ behind things, they lose sight of the truth before their very eyes…
Ellipses
Hussein ShobokshiI have a friend who is infatuated with over-analyzing and theorizing, reading between the lines and attempting to interpret the situation. If he were to receive an SMS text message that simply read “Thanks…” he would get in a state of anxiety, attempting to interpret and deduce the “meaning” of the ellipses that follow the word thanks, and understand its “significance.” I can do no more than smile, and watch in amazement at my friend’s ability to misuse his intellect in this way.
My friend’s behaviour it not too far removed from that of the Arab public, indeed I might almost guarantee that he had personally contributed to this sad state of affairs! For example, if I happened to sit down with two Lebanese people then Conspiracy Theories would make up the fourth of our number, for everything revolves around conspiracy theories for the Lebanese, e.g. the hole in the Ozone which will melt the snow on the Faraya-Mzaar mountain-side causing real estates prices to plummet until we are all penniless. The Palestinians on the other hand are not in need of conspiracy theories anymore, they are able to create their own, to the point that an observer when looking at the Palestinian issue might say “how successful those boys are!”
I was passing through an Arab capital city one day when I saw a large poster that read “Dear Citizen, remember that the sidewalk is for you, and the street is for the cars.” I burst into laughter and commentated by saying “If we cannot decide on such issues then there is a big problem!”
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Heavy rains and subsequent flooding are playing havoc in Saudi Arabia’s second city, Jeddah. Saudi Gazette reports that entire sections of the city are cut off, that roadways and tunnels are closed, and that power distribution and sewage collection are being interrupted by the floods. It doesn’t rain much in Saudi Arabia. As a result, urban infrastructure does not include much in the way of rainwater drainage or flood abatement. That’s an economic move that may need to be reconsidered as Saudi cities grow up and outward.
Credit: Saudi Gazette
Heavy floods cripple Jeddah
Abdullah Al-SiqairJEDDAH – Heavy rains and floods here on Friday evening cut off at least four eastern districts – Ajwad, Samer, Manar, and Tawfiq – from the rest of Jeddah. The residents trying to reach their homes were seen stranded along the Haramain highway. The rains also choked the city streets, intersections, and residential areas, bringing in nearly two dozen reports of short-circuit incidents and power outages throughout the city. At least 32 traffic accidents but no casualties were reported.
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Arab News runs a story originating in the Arabic daily Al-Madinah reporting that a Saudi businessman (name not given) has appealed a verdict against him for allegedly organizing a mixed-sex musical event in Mecca. He claims the entire thing is a false allegation.
Businessman petitions court against sentence
MAKKAH: A businessman, who was recently sentenced to four months in jail and 120 lashes for allegedly organizing a musical function that allowed mingling of men and women, has accused the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice of bringing false charges against him.
In his appeal to the Court of Cassation the convicted owner of an amusement park in Makkah said that he committed none of the crimes mentioned in the commission’s accusations or the lower court’s verdict.
He said that he played some religiously-permitted songs in the park late in the night. According to him, at 2:30 a.m., a member of the commission with some other people broke into his office, tore away his clothes and physically assaulted him. He also pointed out that the lower court recorded a witness’ statement that confirmed what he said. The man also denied the commission’s charges that a singer was singing and that his musical instruments were seized, Al-Madinah daily reported yesterday.
