A confluence of development—the King Abdullah Economic City, King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST), and the proposed Haramain rail project—are all combining to create a bit of a real estate and population boom in the area around the city of Rabigh. The railway is still under construction, expected to start service connecting Mecca, Madinah, and Jeddah with Rabigh in 2012.
According to this Saudi Gazette/Okaz story, investors aren’t waiting.
Saudi Gazette – Rabegh jumping on the property train
Meshal Hasan Al-HarbiQUDEID – Observers of the real estate market in Rabegh say the route proposed for the Haramain Train project is sparking an upturn in prices and population as residents relocate to make way for the line and others move in from outside the area.
Dealers say they expect the trend to continue with the expropriation large numbers of properties in areas neighboring the city in order to make way for the train.
“The owners of more than 500 expropriated properties will be looking for alternative premises in Rabegh,” said real estate expert Ahmad Abu Hindi, referring to the properties singled out last month for removal by authorities in charge of the SR6 billion project.
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Continuing seismic activity near Al-Ais has the Saudi government keeping area residents from returning to their homes. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report on the Saudi Geologic Survey’s studies of the area and their recommendation that structures that have been damaged be assessed for safety and that all new construction be halted.
The timelines in the article aren’t entirely clear. There’s mention of a 5.4-Richter Scale tremor, but that does not seem to be new… at least there’s no mention of it on the websites maintained by international earthquake monitors. Saudi media, however, have noted continuing shaking in the 2.0 range.
Tremor study dampens hopes of return to Al-Eis
Mohammed HadhadhJEDDAH – Zuheir Nawab, President of the Saudi Geological Survey, has said that a comprehensive study on the situation in lava zones recommend ceasing all new building construction in the areas and imposing building code earthquake regulations on building owners.
The recently completed study which is to be presented to King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, next week also recommends that residents of the tremor-hit region of Al-Eis be not allowed to return to homes deemed unsafe until the premises have undergone repair and renovation.
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As swine flu spreads and the Haj season approaches, Arab health ministers are deciding to play it safe, AP reports. They are going to ban the elderly, young, and ill from performing pilgrimage this year. I confess to a certain amount of confusion in that what I’ve read about this particular flu is that, outside the ill, those most seriously affected by the flu are those that fall outside these groupings. That is, those from their late-teens into their forties are the ones hardest hit. My information may be out of date, superseded by new studies as experience with the flu grows.
In any event, this step is a big one in terms of regional public health. About the only thing more that could be done would be to cancel Haj, something that has never been done in the history of Islam.
Arabs Advise Young, Old and Sick to Avoid Hajj
CAIRO, (AP) – Arab health ministers decided in a late night meeting Thursday to ban children, the elderly and those with chronic medical conditions from attending the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this year in effort to slow the spread of swine flu.
The ministers, however, stopped short of calling for the cancellation this year of the hajj — a duty for all Muslims in their lifetime — which attracts about 3 million people every year to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
The fear is that the close proximity of millions of people from around the world in late November following peak flu season will fuel the outbreak of the deadly disease. The ministers hope to blunt the possibility of contagion by exclude those most vulnerable to the influenza.
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The UAE’s Gulf News has this piece about a new international conference to ‘defend Islam’ to be held in Riyadh. My only question is whether the Saudis will be in preaching mode or possibly listening mode. I think there’s a lot about Islam that the Saudis could learn from other Muslims.
Gulfnews: Riyadh to host International Conference to defend Islam
bdul Rahman Shaheen, CorrespondentRiyadh: Riyadh will host a major international conference aimed at removing the misconceptions about Islam and its Prophet. King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz issued an order Tuesday directing the Saudi Society for Sunnah (Tradition of the Prophet) and its Sciences to organize the International Conference on “Prophet of Mercy” on May 9 and 10, 2010. The conference will highlight the salient features of Islam as a religion of mercy and tolerance as well as its denunciation of all forms of extremism and terrorism. International figures, including prominent scholars, thinkers, intellectuals and writers will be invited to the two-day event.
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Steven Schwartz, rarely a friend of Saudi Arabia and always an enemy of what he terms ‘Wahhabism’, writes that the recent raising of Pr. Nayef to the position of Second Deputy Prime Minister bodes ill for the country. He sees it as a retrograde step likely to undo the many small steps toward report that have been undertaken by the King.
Saudi Arabia Moves Backward – Hudson New York
Steven SchwartzSince his accession to the throne in 2005, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abd Al-Aziz has been viewed hopefully, by many Muslims, as a reformer. With wide contacts in the kingdom, we at CIP shared this optimism.
Abdullah encouraged a positive vision of the Saudi future by, among other actions, creating a department of women’s education, headed by a woman. He had supported an interfaith meeting between representatives of all the world religions in Madrid last year, and although it accomplished nothing important, it represented a breakthrough in that Muslims had never before sat down with representatives of the Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, and Shinto communities, on an equal footing.
Finally and most importantly, Abdullah had taken steps to curb the notorious mutawiyin, usually mislabeled a “religious police” by foreign observers, and to make them accountable for their frequent abuse of ordinary people. In reality, the mutawiyin are not a police agency, but a paramilitary body similar to the Iranian Basij who spy on citizens in totalitarian countries like Cuba and China. The mutawiyin patrol the Saudi streets to enforce the rigid pseudo-moralistic habits prescribed by Wahhabism, the Saudi state religion. They accost couples they suspect of being unmarried; they arrest women who drive vehicles, and beat, with leather-covered sticks, women who allow a thin margin of the abaya, a garment covering the whole body, to slip, exposing an ankle; they harass vendors of allegedly heretical or subversive books; they raid homes where they suspect liquor is consumed; they walk the streets of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, preventing Shia and Sufi pilgrims from engaging in prayers of which the Wahhabis disapprove… and they kill people.
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Menassat writes on the recently released report from the Arab Human Development (AHDR), a UN-sponsored body which works under the auspices of the UNDP. Interestingly, the report (for which I cannot find a link at present) was not issued by the UN. Both it and the UNDP state that the report does not reflect official UN opinion.
That out of the way, the Menassat story says that the focus of the report is on people’s sense of security while living in their own countries. Countries in the Middle East, some of which are operating under ‘emergency’ laws for the past 20 years, do not provide an adequate environment for people to flourish.
I’ll keep looking for a full-text copy of the report. If an reader happens to come across one, I’d appreciate a link.
UPDATE: Thanks to a reader, you can follow this link to the report.
UN-sponsored report concludes
major barriers to security in the Arab worldThe United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released a report yesterday (July 21) assessing the security situation in the Arab world. The U.N.-sponsored independently authored report was not shown to the public in advance of its release, and it faults Arab governments for curtailing growth, citing human rights as the main obstacle to development
JACKSON ALLERSBEIRUT, July 22, 2009 (MENASSAT) — “Human security is a prerequisite for human development, and its widespread absence in Arab countries has held back their progress,” the 2009 Arab Human Development Report contends.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP)-sponsored report, authored by some 90 intellectuals and scholars from several Arab countries, was released yesterday after two years of research, and according to UNDP spokeswoman Mona El-Yassir, does not reflect the opinions of UNDP or the UN agency’s top brass.
In keeping with the intent of the original Arab Human Development Report on human security released in 2002, the 288-page report builds on the idea that “no single composite index of human security would be valid” or reliable if not for opinion surveys at regional and sub-regional levels.
The report defined human security as being “the liberation of human beings from those intense, extensive, prolonged, and comprehensive threats to which their lives and freedom are vulnerable.”
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Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council has established a new department to deal with complaints about delays within the Saudi judicial system. There aren’t a lot of details in the brief report, however. If this department does nothing more than get the left hand talking to the right hand of the judicial system, it will be a worthwhile achievement.
New judicial department to look into complaints
By Hazim Al-MuttairiRIYADH – Dr. Saleh Bin Humayyed, Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council, said a new department has been set up to receive complaints from citizens and expatriates against any delay in administering justice.
The creation of the new department is part of the reforms in the judiciary that also entails establishment of the Courts Affairs Administration, Cases and Consultations Administration and a body concerned with an integrated computer program.
Bin Humayyed said the council is working to prepare a short-term plan aimed at carrying out training and enlightenment programs and studying the establishment of the commercial, labor and traffic courts during the coming years. – Okaz/SG
Sabria Jawhar (Sabria Is Out of the Box blog) has a column in today’s Saudi Gazette. She writes about the back and forth taking place in Saudi Arabia over the propriety of women’s taking part in sports and athletics, even at the exercise club level. Most of the medical world readily acknowledges that some sort of exercise program is necessary for good physical health. It’s also necessary for good mental health, writes Jawhar, particularly in a country that offers women so few outlets for exercising the mind and spirit. She calls for the government to grant licenses to women’s athletic clubs and finds at least moral support coming from the Shoura Council.
Saudi Gazette – Licensing sports clubs for Saudi women necessary
Sabria S. JawharONE of the puzzling aspects about being a Saudi woman is the pressure from family, peers and even society to be a good Muslim woman. Be modest in public. Show your charms to your husband at home. We have an obligation to look our best.
For generations the Saudi female has been denied the right to physical exercise, this mundane yet vitally healthy aspect of living an active and happy life that benefits not only the woman but her entire family. The absence of female physical education in Saudi schools has been for so long that few of us even consider the impact it has had on our society.
I never participated in physical education as a child and it was only five years ago that I gave exercise any serious thought when I bought my first pair of walking shoes.
For many young women outside of Saudi Arabia, jogging or walking is a part of their lifestyle and the day’s routine. For us in Saudi Arabia, the mere thought of venturing outside for a jog or walk is laughable. And it has nothing to do with the heat.
Just a few months ago, Saudi women discovered that unlicensed women’s gyms were to be shut down. The irony is that the gyms are unlicensed because there is no government authority willing to assume the responsibility of issuing them.
Now comes Dr. Ali Abbas Al-Hakami, who belongs to the Board of Senior Ulema. Dr. Hakami offers women a glimmer of hope that may turn the tide of how Saudi society views the concept of female exercise.
Dr. Hakami asserts that not only is exercise for women permitted under Shariah, but is a necessity.
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Amnesty International issued a report [69-page PDF] on Saudi Arabia, focusing on human rights violations in Saudi Arabia. News media picked up on the report’s comments on the recent—and ongoing—trials of terrorists detained for various offenses in the Kingdom. Here, Amnesty might have shot its bolt too soon, as its report was written a month before the first verdicts were announced and partial details of the trials were given. The report would have benefited from a month’s delay.
The violations of human rights in the Kingdom in this report are primarily in realm of state action: arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill treatment, unfair trials and detention, renditions and forcible returns. The report has ‘case studies’ of individuals and groups whom have been victimized by the system, according to Amnesty. There are also photos.
Amnesty says Saudi terror fight plagued with abuse
SEBASTIAN ABBOTCAIRO — Saudi Arabia is holding more than 3,000 people in secret detention and has used torture to extract confessions in its anti-terrorism crackdown since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Amnesty International said in a report Wednesday.
The report criticized the international community for turning a blind eye to the kingdom’s methods in its crackdown. Saudi Arabia has carried out a heavy wave of arrests against al-Qaida members in past years after the militant group carried out a string of attacks against expatriate residential compounds, oil facilities and government buildings.
“These unjust anti-terrorism measures have made an already dire human rights situation worse,” said Malcolm Smart, head of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, in a press release.
Asked about the report, a Saudi Interior Ministry official, Abdulrahman Alhadlaq, said, “These are claims that have to be proven.”
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Reuters’ report covers essentially the same ground:
The New York Times‘s coverage is broader, covering the report as a whole:
The Amnesty report does address several recent improvements in Saudi law and justice, as well as the creation of Saudi human rights bodies. Something not mentioned, though, is the simple fact that human rights NGOs like Human Rights Watch—but not Amnesty International—are permitted into the country to do their assessments. This is something that would not have happened even five years ago.
There is a very crude fact in American politics: to take money from a Saudi donor is going to be seen as having sold your soul to the devil. That’s the underlying theme of this piece from the conservative journal, ‘National Review’ in its online edition. It’s also the point being made in a variety of conservative and pro-Zionist publications and blogs. It doesn’t matter if there may be a point in criticism of Israel and its policies, if you take Saudi money to make that criticism, you will be defamed and cast into the wilderness.
We see the same arguments being made to diminish think-tanks and universities. Georgetown U. and Harvard were both called illegitimate for taking Saudi money to create or fund Middle Eastern Studies program. Chas Freeman and the Middle East Policy Council which he had headed were both castigated for seeking Saudi money to fund their operations. The Middle East Institute, Johns Hopkins’ Center for Strategic & International Studies… both have been flamed for accepting Saudi funds, even when those funds represent less than 20% of their operations.
The moral of the story is that if you wish to avoid political calumny in the US, stay away from the Saudis. Truth, fairness, equity? Not important, apparently. Just make sure your funding source is approved by those with a political agenda they’re willing to feed to the media and the media is happy to eat.
From Gulag Liberators to Saudi Retainers by Gerald M. Steinberg on National Review Online
Human Rights Watch has betrayed its original mission
Gerald M. SteinbergHuman Rights Watch was founded in 1978 in New York (as Helsinki Watch) with the mission of using public demonstrations and other forms of “naming and shaming” to free prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Many Gulag denizens, including Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky, later recognized HRW’s role in gaining their freedom. Shortly thereafter HRW began advocating on behalf of political prisoners and torture victims in other totalitarian regimes, including in Chile, Argentina, and Greece.
But since then, HRW has lost its moral compass, and the organization is using its substantial budget ($42 million in 2008) to repeatedly attack Israel by exploiting the language of human rights and international law. Tendentious reports and press conferences, using distorted legal rhetoric in place of credible evidence, target Israeli responses to terror attacks from Arafat, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
My organization, NGO Monitor, annually releases a systematic analysis of HRW’s agenda, and our reports clearly show that HRW singles out Israel in the Middle East. For years, this arbiter of international morality and human rights had very little to say about Libya, Saudi Arabia, or Palestinian terrorists. HRW’s recent cautious criticism of Saudi policy came only after a reorganization of the organization’s board — and then only after receiving unwelcome attention for its see-no-evil treatment of the Kingdom. In May 2009, Arab News reported that HRW officials went to Saudi Arabia to raise funds, advertising the numerous condemnations and pseudo-research reports against Israel in the Gaza war. Some of the founders, including Robert Bernstein, are in strong disagreement with the organization they built.
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UPDATE: Just because today seems like the sort of day it’d be nice to roll around in rich, stinky irony, Earth News has the following story:
The Washington Post runs a piece from the Associated Press on the many ways Bahrain draws Saudi Arabs to its shores—and not all of them are alcohol and women! Saudis behaving badly are a problem, though. So much so, in fact, that Bahrain is starting to limit the places alcohol can be sold. Killing the golden goose is something we see a lot of in the region, sadly. Partaking too freely of a less restrictive society often leads to backlash. Still, there are innocent pleasure (as defined by most of the world) to be had on the island that simply are not available in the Kingdom.
Bahrain’s allure for Saudis extends beyond alcohol
REBECCA SANTANAMANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — This tiny Gulf island nation is sick of its reputation as a seedy off-shore Las Vegas and a hotspot of sin for Saudis, so it’s starting to rein in the booze. Already it’s flooded with Saudis looking for tamer fare they can’t get at home in their ultraconservative kingdom – Hannah Montana and heavy metal.
The Muslim nation has long been known as a no-holds-barred island where glitzy nightclubs, Lebanese lounge singers and alcohol entice Muslims from the Gulf states who want a break from their more rigid societies.
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The UK’s Independent reported yesterday on a case that’s a pure mess. A married Saudi women—in some places identified as a ‘princess’—takes up with a non-Muslim man and becomes pregnant in the UK. She fears that if she were to stay in Saudi Arabia, she would face capital punishment. That’s entirely likely.
She convinced her husband to let her return to the UK on some pretext where she sought and has now succeeded in obtaining political asylum. While her behavior was criminal under Saudi law and shameful under most moral laws, capital punishment would have been excessive, as most people now consider the term. A few countries still recognize a defense of ‘heat of passion’ if a man kills is wife or her lover if he catches them in the act, but for most, it’s simply a terrible tragedy that may have consequences under civil law, not criminal law.
Princess facing Saudi death penalty given secret UK asylum
Woman feared she would be stoned after giving birth to an illegitimate child in Britain
Robert Verkaik, Home Affairs EditorA Saudi Arabian princess who had an illegitimate child with a British man has secretly been granted asylum in this country after she claimed she would face the death penalty if she were forced to return home. The young woman, who has been granted anonymity by the courts, won her claim for refugee status after telling a judge that her adulterous affair made her liable to death by stoning.
Her case is one of a small number of claims for asylum brought by citizens of Saudi Arabia which are not openly acknowledged by either government. British diplomats believe that to do so would in effect be to highlight the persecution of women in Saudi Arabia, which would be viewed as open criticism of the House of Saud and lead to embarrassing publicity for both governments.
The woman, who comes from a very wealthy Saudi family, says she met her English boyfriend – who is not a Muslim – during a visit to London. They struck up a relationship.
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Today’s issue of the paper carries a piece nothing that the young woman’ case is not unique. Ten more Saudis are seeking asylum (technically, ‘leave to stay’) by the British government. Other Saudis, however, have been refused asylum, including one who tried to organize a labor union in the Kingdom. The article also reports, correctly, that neither the UK nor Saudi governments like to highlight such issues. I think the reasons for that are fairly obvious.
The piece does not identify the Saudis currently seeking asylum, by name or by sex. Just what they fear in the Kingdom is unknown, nor is it known how successful their pleas might be.
Ten Saudis seek asylum after princess is allowed to stay
Chairman of home affairs committee welcomes decision to give sanctuary to woman with illegitimate child
Robert Verkaik, Home Affairs EditorMinisters are considering asylum applications for 10 Saudi Arabian nationals who claim they are at risk of persecution if they are forced to return to the Middle Eastern kingdom, it emerged last night.
The new cases were made public after The Independent revealed the plight of a Saudi princess who was granted asylum in Britain after she had an illegitimate child with a British man.
The young woman, who has also been granted anonymity by the courts, won her claim for asylum after she told a court that she faced execution if her husband found out about her adultery and she was forced to return to Saudi Arabia.
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