I’m back in Washington, DC for my brother’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday. Other obligations will keep posting on the blog light and erratic until later in the coming week.
Arab News runs a couple of pieces on the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice today. One focuses on new efforts to train members of the religious police force in proper techniques and behavior in performing their jobs:
Vice police start training in move to polish image
JEDDAH: The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice recently launched a training program for its field workers in Makkah province.
“Thirty commission members are participating in the nine-week course currently under way in Jeddah. Its objective is to familiarize the members with the most effective skills while interacting with the public,” said Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, director general of the commission in Makkah province.
Similar courses are being conducted in other cities such as Riyadh, Madinah, Hail, Abha and Jazan in collaboration with the recently-constituted Higher Institute for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which is aimed at modernizing and professionalizing the force. More than 150 commission members are attending the training programs across the Kingdom.
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The other article gives the Commission a chance to explain how it did not wrong in its invasion of a women’s facility in chasing a woman alleged to have committed khulwa. The paper’s headline suggests that the editors aren’t buying the Haya’s story:
Virtue Commission tries to play down Madinah ruckus
Fatima Sidiya & Yousuf Muhammad I Arab NewsJEDDAH/MADINAH: The local branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice denied yesterday that commission members had dragged a woman out of a women-only professional training center by her hair.
Spokesman Yasir Al-Matrafi played down the incident that took place on Tuesday where commission members arrested a man and returned a woman to her family after they were seen together in a vehicle in a state of khulwa (illegal seclusion of an unrelated man and woman).
“The case that occurred next to the women-only center is a case of khulwa between a young man and a girl,” said the statement.
“The arrested (man) was transferred to Al-Oyoun police while the girl was handed in to her family.”
The commission said what was reported in the local newspapers was “untrue” and accused a man named Hamid Abid of obstructing justice and making false statements to the press.
Abid is the husband of one of the women who was in the center when the incident took place.
The commission claims that Abid did not obey orders to stop interfering with the work of the commission. He was not arrested, but he was reported to the Al-Oyoun police station for investigation.
The commission did not describe the nature of Abid’s alleged interference.
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Saudi Gazette and its Arabic sister-paper Okaz run a story summarizing the debates and government actions surrounding child marriages in Saudi Arabia. The articles note that two such marriages have been terminated in Taif, in the Hijaz province. They also outline actions taken by the Shoura Council and the arguments in the Saudi media.
Taif child marriage controversy resolved
Abdulaziz Al-RobaieeTAIF – The controversy over two child marriages in Taif has been resolved after a court granted divorces for 11-year-old Abeer and 15-year-old Sheikha from their aged husbands.
Abeer now lives with her mother after leaving the social protection house where she had been residing awaiting the court’s decision on granting custody to her mother.
Sheikha has also obtained a divorce but remains at the protection home until her mother is granted custody.
Sheikha’s plight first came to light seven months ago when she attempted to commit suicide by drinking poisonous chemicals on her wedding day, which resulted in her being hospitalized at Taif’s King Faisal Hospital.
Authorities were called in to investigate and the case was passed on to the courts, which granted divorces for both girls on Wednesday.
The Saudi press has lately been discussing the custom of child bride marriages, especially cases of middle-aged or elderly men taking prepubescent girls for their wives.
Recent press reports on child marriages have sparked a wave of criticism among columnists and social activists, who have called for abolishing the custom and for setting a minimum age for marriage in Saudi law.
In response, the Shoura Council passed a resolution last November setting the legal age of majority at 18.
However, the council refrained from explicitly defining this as the minimum age for marriage.
At the same time, the council’s resolution leaves room for hope that the law permitting child marriages may be amended.
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Here’s a human interest piece from Alarabiya TV’s website, on a young Muslim-American woman who competes in basketball while wearing hijab and modest clothing. That is no impediment to her breaking scoring records—all the more amazing as she’s only 5’3″ (160 cm). Worth a look
Hijab-wearing basketball star scores big in US
Young Muslim shatters stereotypes by breaking recordsFor most teenagers high-school is tough enough facing peer-pressure and acne, but being a Muslim female who wears a hijab, or headscarf, can make it even more daunting, especially when you are a top-scoring, history-making basketball player.
For Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, who is on her way to becoming the first player in Massachusetts state history–male or female–to score 3,000 points, wearing the hijab was not an option but she was determined not to let it be an obstacle either.
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The UK’s Guardian runs this piece by Agnes Callmard, Executive Director of Article 19, a free-speech activist group which takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The piece is based on the presumption that freedom of expression is the basis of all other freedoms, a point with which I largely agree. It cautions that trying to create international laws to ‘protect religion’ ends up leaving individuals largely unprotected in this fundamental freedom.
Protect the believers, not the belief
Proposals on ‘defamation of religion’ have split the UN and put at risk the principle that security relies on the freedom of expression
Agnes Callmard“Defamation of religion” was once again highlighted on the international stage at last week’s meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva.
It is also at the centre of the continuing negotiations over the Durban review conference in April, which will evaluate progress towards a set of goals to eliminate racism, intolerance and xenophobia. Indeed, the US has cited the introduction of a clause prohibiting “defamation of religion” in the Durban review document to justify its non-participation in the conference.
Over the last eight years, this issue has progressively poisoned exchange between member states of the international community. It is both constructed and perceived as a contest of values, if not civilization, which (falsely) opposes a “secular” west to a “zealot” Islamic world. These increasingly entrenched positions augur badly for the resolution of this disagreement and very poorly for human rights protection in general.
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This piece is accompanied by the press release from Article 19.
It doesn’t rise the level of a paradox, but rather a matter of confusion. Saudi women are, of course, subject to Saudi law. Saudi law—as written—provides for the presence of a lawyer at trials. But Saudi women cannot be represented by female attorneys as the country has yet to license a female attorney to stand in court. This has led to a situation in which law firms hire female attorneys who work in separate facilities, usually contiguous to the law firms’ office, where female clients can come without ‘unseemly’ integrated meetings with males in the firms. When it comes time for trial, however, only a male attorney can handle the case in court.
Things may be changing, according to this Saudi Gazette article. Saudi law firms are increasing their hiring of female attorneys, paralegals, and other female staff to take on a growing number of cases involving women. The male attorneys are not bothered by the fact that there are female attorneys and female clients welcome the opportunity for a variety of reasons. But the courts and Ministry of Justice are dragging their feet. Here’s another area in which legal reforms can push the borders of fossilized thinking, by granting female attorneys licenses to fully practice what they’ve been trained to do.
Law firms open doors to Saudi women
Reema M. Al-ShoukanyJEDDAH – As a first step on the long road leading to Saudi women being able to obtain a license to practice law, law firms are giving female graduates the opportunity to have legal training.
Recently, law firms have appointed Saudi women to ‘paralegal’ positions which means that they can do just about all of the work on a legal case but cannot present the case in front of judges in a courtroom.
Women are not allowed to represent a client in a courtroom because the Ministry of Justice is still studying the matter of issuing law licenses to females.
“The legal work that takes place outside of the courtroom represents more than 90 percent of the work on a case. This is very important work which can be done by women in law firms,” said Dr. Majed M. Garoub, President of Saudi law training and head of the National Committee of Lawyers in the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce.
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Arab News reports on an instance of the Vice Police Paradox. Can a religious policeman break (customary) law in pursuit of his mission?
Here, the story is of a member of the Haya chasing a woman into a women-only center, a place where women are likely to be unveiled. The women, needless to say, were not amused.
Vice cop enters no-go area to arrest fleeing woman
Fatima Sidiya I Arab NewsJEDDAH: A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice barged into a women’s professional training center in Al-Sultana district of Madinah, chasing after a young woman who went into the center to escape the pursuing man.
According to police, the commission member saw the woman in a car with a young man. The man was arrested on khulwa (illegal seclusion) charges, but the woman fled into the center, hoping the commission member would not pursue her.
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So here’s an odd little item from Saudi Gazette/Okaz: members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice are suing the Commission over work conditions and pay. If nothing else, the piece demonstrates that the religious police do not see themselves as ‘volunteers’. I suppose a move to greater professionalism is to be applauded—assuming, of course, that there is a valid role for the Haya in the first place.
Agents sue Hai’a for job rights
Abdulhadi Al-Rubai’eeTAIF – The Administrative Court in Riyadh is looking into a case filed by 300 agents of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Hai’a) against their presidency demanding “job rights”.
The rights that are being sought include allowances for field work, dangerous assignments, working on the weekends, and working at night, and special allowances for those agents who have bachelor’s and master’s degrees. The plaintiffs hired the legal consultant Khaled Al-Mutairi to represent them. If the judicial verdict is in favor of the agents and orders the Hai’a to pay them all or part of the requested allowances, each agent will pay the legal representative SR1,500.
If the verdict is not in favor of the agents, no legal fee will be paid. – Okaz/SG
There’s not much detail in this Khaleej Times report,—actually, the quotation below is it in total—but it seems that the Saudi Cabinet is taking a tougher and more expansive approach to dealing with terrorism. By defining supporters or funders of terrorism as terrorist, it sets out a clear marker that such support will not be tolerated.
Saudi Cabinet Endorses Revised Arab Anti-terror Accord
JEDDAH — The Saudi Cabinet has endorsed the revised Arab Anti-Terror Accord that considers encouraging people to commit terrorism as well as financing and collecting funds to commit such crimes as terrorist acts.
According to Article 1 of the accord terrorism is a crime that is committed with the intent of creating terror in any allied country or against its properties or interests and its citizens and their properties.
The Article warns against praising terrorist acts or printing publications or writing articles or producing audio and videocassettes in favour of terrorism, saying that such acts would be considered as acts ?of terrorism.
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The American think-tank Rand Corporation has come out with a major study looking at Saudi-Iranian relations and how it pertains to US foreign policy. The full report [158-page PDF document can be downloaded here] is summarized in the link below [itself, a 17-page PDF document].
The report is thorough. It analyzes various aspects of Saudi and Iranian politics, society, and yes, sectarian differences to demonstrate that the relationship between the two is complex. Not only are there differences between the two, but the relationship is colored by other relationships, including the GCC states, Iraq, the US, and other states internationally. There are competitions in the quest for power, in the economics of oil production, and in the historical relations between Arabs and Persians.
For the US, the report’s main import is that the US should realize that Saudi Arabia is acting and will continue to act in its own, long-term interests. It does not seek to confront Iran except when necessary, by Saudi standards, not US standards. While sectarian differences are real and the are important only to some in Saudi Arabia, but not particularly so to the government—geopolitics is far more a decisive factor in parsing the relationship.
I do urge you to read the entire piece, or at least the summary.
Saudi-Iranian Relations Since the Fall of Saddam
Rivalry, Cooperation, and Implications for U.S. PolicyFrederic Wehrey, Theodore W. Karasik, Alireza Nader, Jeremy Ghez, Lydia Hansell, Robert A. Guffey
Summary
The fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the war in Iraq have affected sweeping changes in the strategic landscape of the Middle East, radically shifting the regional balance of power. Old security paradigms have been thrown into question, and local states appear to be reaffirming, renegotiating, or rethinking their relations with one another and with outside powers. Saudi Arabia and Iran have in many respects been the central players in this unfolding transformation. The dynamic relations between the two powers have affected the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine with important implications for regional stability and U.S. interests.
__________________________Bilateral Tensions Affect Regional Stability and U.S. Interests
Saudi Arabia and Iran are divided by long-standing structural tensions. Each has aspirations for Islamic leadership, and each possesses different visions of regional order. Whereas Tehran regards Riyadh as America’s proxy and a buffer against Iran’s rightful primacy in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia worries about Iran’s asymmetric power and regional ambitions, especially its expanding influence in post-Saddam Iraq and its alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon. A particular concern in Riyadh is Iran’s ability to challenge the legitimacy of the al-Saud before regional and domestic audiences by upstaging them on pan-Arab issues such as Palestine.
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The not-totally-untrue stereotype of Saudis’ unwillingness to take other than management jobs is being challenged, according to this piece from Saudi Gazette/Okaz. I guess the facts of life are settling in for the younger generation. That can only be beneficial for the long-term interests of the country and its economy.
171 Saudis compete for cleaning job
Raddah Bin Mohammad Al-HarthiMAISAN – One hundred seventy Saudis with high school certificates and one with a college degree have applied for the post of cleaner at Hidad Schools, south Taif, after the education administration announced nine vacancies. Other vacant posts include office clerk and night guard. – Okaz/SG
International Women’s Day did receive some recognition in Saudi Arabia, according to this Arab News piece. A meeting of the Jeddah Literary Club held discussions and presented papers on the position of women in Saudi society, apparently to the dismay of some in attendance. The conclusion was that contemporary Saudi society is at odds with the historical view of women within Islamic societies and that women are being held back, wittingly or not. One paper included a brave call for gender integration of elementary schools; another pointed out the difference between khulwa and co-existence. I hope that the papers delivered at the meeting make their way into the media.
Al-Jawhara to Saudi women: Do not accept half-solutions
Omaima Al-Fardan I Arab NewsJEDDAH: A seat in the Council of Ministers was among the most pressing demands made by Saudi women who attended a special function held on Saturday night by the Jeddah Literary Club to honor a number of Saudi women for their outstanding accomplishments on the occasion of the International Women’s Day.
Deputy Chairman of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) Al-Jawhara Al-Anqari disagreed with the system having gender segregation in schools and in the administration of education.
She said that since education is a human right for all there is no need for such separation. “Women were consulted during the early days of Islam. Such authority was acceptable then,” she said.
In her speech after being decorated, Al-Jawhara called on Saudi women to strongly defend all God-given rights.
“Do not accept half-solutions,” she added.
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