They need to find a very good hiding spot and wash their face continuously or make wudoo because the fire of hell is coming to earth to shame them ALL!

They could begin by outing these men, and revisiting this story with much more detail than what was probably done back in 1984. SO I wish people would recognize that this corruption is not just municipal in nature, but head straight up the ladder to the top. (To use the Katrina analogy: Mayor Ray Nagin: responsible. Also responsible: Michael Brown and George Bush for lax response. The only real heroes of Katrina: The Coast Guard.)

The question is how much different is the situation in KSA today compared with 20 years ago. And the answer lies with whether or not King Abdullah (and others) have the gumption to face the facts and to do something about this corruption. If there is no “naming and shaming” coupled with actual punishment, instead of royal pardon after the fact, then we’ll know the answer to the question of whether much has changed since that time this “government official” was granted a pardon because his brother was King Fahd’s personal secretary (ie, the very top of the pyramid forgives, and therefore empowers, the corruption lower down).

Lawrence Wright, who writes for The New Yorker, interviewed Hussein Shobokshi, a columnist for Okaz (son of the founder of the paper) in 2004:

EXCERPT BEGINS:

Twenty years ago, Shobokshi told me, Jeddah had been provided with the money to build a modern sewage system that would accommodate the fast-growing city. The government official in charge of the project, however, took the money and built himself a mansion in San Francisco and a palace in Jeddah that is equipped with a discothèque and a bowling alley. As a result, Shobokshi said, the streets in Jeddah are constantly filled with tanker trucks to drain the city’s cesspools. Worse, sewage has got mixed into Jeddah’s groundwater, and this has contaminated drinking water in many parts of the city.

“We have new diseases of the eye and skin that didn’t exist here ten years ago,” Shobokshi said. “Lung and breast cancers are forty per cent above the national rate. Hepatitis is so high that it has to be classified as an epidemic. Marine biologists tell me that certain fishes have become extinct because of the overflow. Swimming will be history.”

Shobokshi said that he had travelled to Delft University of Technology, in Holland, for advice.

“I gave them all the figures. They told me, ‘Hussein, you’ve got a time bomb.’ The sewage right now is dumped in a huge lake above the city. The walls of this lake are made of sand. And Jeddah is on a geological fault! They said that if there’s an earthquake of five on the Richter scale it will take six hours for the entire city of Jeddah to be flooded with sewage water one and a half metres deep.”

“What happened to the guy who stole the money?”

“The government investigated and it was ruled that he should pay a penalty and go to jail,” Shobokshi said. “But then he was pardoned because his brother is the private secretary to the King.”

http://www.lawrencewright.com/art-saudi.html

You know like I have said, “Payment is always extracted in one form or another.” Sometimes it is just better to put a dent into people’s wallets than well I will let the rest of yall figure it out!

Indeed it is! If a newspaper is scared to published even the name of a restaurant that gives food poisoning to customers out of fear the owner of said restaurant might be a Powerful Figure, then nobody but the People In Charge can give permission to “name and shame” because then whomever is impugned by the allegation cannot use the legal system to sue. If the People In Charge are themselves the target of the allegations, then nobody can “out” them. As they say: Sunlight is the best disinfectant, meaning that transparency and freedom of information is the best path toward the Truth, then you let the facts speak for themselves. Saudi Arabia needs to get over “reputation” and focus more on the Truth. Some people do not deserve the good reputations they have. True, that.

Check it. I damn sick of the cover up for the royals and their cronies. I say blow up this insane hypocrisy.

If Muslims are looking at where to start reform, this might be a good place to start. Yes, gossip can be a bad thing, but isn’t letting a great evil persist and grow due to enforced silence much worse?

Sidenote: I could go for some hoho’s. I saw them at tamimi. Yummy!

Also I am not here to defend the Royal family or princes and princesses but I have heard and believe to a large extent the dirt balls are the people who are close ( not Al-Saud) to them and take advantage of their trust. Of course not all but a lot of them! Yes they need to cut down on their disgusting spending when there are people in makeshift homes and schools. And F-people coming after us if we name them. F-F-F-F-F-F-F that was a machine gun artillary of metaphoric F-BOMBS and it felt GOOOOOOOD

Sheikh Abdul Mohsen’s comments might be convenient for those defenders of Shariah — something to make them feel warm and fuzzy about their justice system.

But in the real world it doesn’t work at all because the system is inherently skewed to favor those with means. The classic example of this is blood money — those with the means to pay diyyah demands are less likely to receive the same punishment as those who cannot afford the diyyah demands or who can’t get the sympathy of charitable organizations.

Shariah-style libel and slander works the same way: *publicizing* is the crime, not making accusations that turn out to be false. That is a HUGE distinction. Making even truthful statements against anyone with power and means and you face a world of hurt if they go after you for “publicizing” and harming their public reputation. (I guess you’re supposed to solve these issues behind closed doors. And we can see how well that works.)

Add to that the ability for judges to dole out whatever punishment they deem fit (with the except of a handful of prescribed punishments) and what you have is a minefield for anyone who dares call out individuals for their actions.

The way I see it: the only ones who can “name and shame” in Saudi Arabia are often the same people who bear much of the responsibility. The public is shut out of this. And the media will only do what they are told. If the king orders the media to publicly name and shame, they’ll follow. But the king’s gonna have to figure out who should be shamed.

Seems quite messy when everyone is hung up about reputation as opposed to whether something is TRUE or not. Making the act of making something public a crime is a perfect way to prevent the truth from being made public.

Which is kind of the whole point. The Qur’an makes a big deal about obeying those earthly leaders (as long as they aren’t harming Islam) so obviously Shariah is going to favor them and protect them because in spirit they’re supposed to be the enforcers of Islamic law and custom on earth.