Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that the Ministry of Education—responsible for primary and secondary schools—has issued instructions that emergency personnel are to be permitted to enter schools when there is a need. This clarifies the situation that is alleged to have led tot he deaths of schoolgirls in the 2002 fire at a girls school in Mecca. According to some reports, the religious police prevented rescue personnel from entering the building because they were unrelated to the girls inside. (I note that I have also heard from reputable sources that this did not happen.) In any event, the rules are now clear: open the doors to the rescuers, firemen, and the like. Life is more precious than notions of modesty.
Rescuers to be allowed to enter girls schools
Abdullah Obaidallah Al-GhamdiRIYADH – All schools for both boys and girls in the country have “clear instructions” to allow rescuers to enter their premises in emergencies, according to the spokesman for the Ministry of Education, Dr. Fahd Al-Taiyash. He said the ministry has “specific plans” to deal with emergencies at schools.
The order has been sent to regional branches of the ministry.
In a telephonic interview, he said that the ministry is working on training school security guards to deal with emergencies. The ministry will soon implement a project aimed at enhancing safety and security at schools, through training a number of male and female teachers at each school on safety and security inside a school building. – Okaz/SG
Following the Swiss ban on constructing minarets on new mosques, Islamic practices—particularly the wearing of full-face veils or niqab—are coming under increased pressure in the West. There are lots of arguments about why this is happening, from fear to xenophobia to ignorance, but the fact is that many Westerners are now pushing against something they believe does not belong within their cultures. While they are willing to make certain accommodations for religious belief and practice, there are some issues that are beyond what they find acceptable.
The French government has passed a resolution, sponsored by the president, to ban wearing niqab in public spaces. It is expected to be turned into law in July.
French parliament lays groundwork for veil ban
ELAINE GANLEYPARIS (AP) — French lawmakers unanimously passed a resolution on Tuesday asserting that face-covering Muslim veils are contrary to the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity on which France is founded.
The non-binding resolution, passed 434 to 0, lays the groundwork for a planned law forbidding face-covering veils in public, including in the streets.
One lawmaker compared women who fully cover themselves to “phantoms” and “walking coffins.”
The bill calling for a global ban on such garments goes before parliament in July. A draft text is to be reviewed by the Cabinet on May 19. A similar veil ban is in the works in neighboring Belgium.
Tuesday’s resolution, sponsored by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party, had been widely expected to win approval in the National Assembly with rival Socialists backing it despite concerns about the wording of an eventual law. Lawmakers in the 577-seat house who opposed the resolution abstained.
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Belgium has passed a similar law last month, with almost unanimous support in its parliamentary House of Representatives:
Belgium passes Europe’s first ban on wearing burka in public
Vanessa Mock in Brussels and John Lichfield in ParisThe first European ban on the wearing of the Islamic burka in public is poised to come into force in Belgium. A parliamentary vote on a Bill which bans face coverings has raised fears among Muslim groups and human rights campaigners that other countries could follow suit. France is already considering similar legislation.
“We are the first country to break through the chain that has kept countless women enslaved,” said Denis Ducarme, a Belgian Liberal party MP. He said that he hoped other European countries would follow Belgium’s example. Members of the Belgian House of Representatives called a truce to weeks of bitter feuding caused by the collapse of the government to push through the vote, giving it almost unanimous, cross-party support. The measure now has to be rubber-stamped by the Senate after June general elections to become law.
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Perhaps more surprisingly, Canada, a country noted for its flexibility and tolerance on many social issues, is finding public support for a ban as well. The government of the Province of Quebec—which has particular issues dealing with nationalism and identity—has proposed a law ban the wearing of niqab while applying for or receiving government services as well as by those working in government jobs. What is startling is that, according to polls, 80% of the entire Canadian population—not just the Quebecois—support the move.
Majority of Canadians support niqab ban
Marian Scott, Canwest News ServiceOne reason support for the niqab ban is higher in Quebec than the rest of Canada is the ongoing debate over reasonable accommodation in that province, according to pollster Angus Reid.
Most Canadians agree with a proposed Quebec law that would refuse all government services to women wearing the niqab or burka, an Angus Reid poll has found.
Ninety-five per cent of Quebecers support the proposed law, which would bar the face veil from government offices, schools and other publicly funded institutions, said the poll, conducted for The Gazette and released yesterday.
In the rest of Canada, three out of four people agreed with Bill 94, which was tabled on Wednesday by the government of Jean Charest. The bill would require all public-sector employees to have their faces uncovered, as well as any citizen using government services, such as someone applying for a medicare card.
Mario Canseco, vice-president of public affairs for Angus Reid, said the survey shows an unusually high level of support for a government measure.
“It’s very rare to get 80% of Canadians to agree on something,” he said.
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The issue of women’s driving is again floating around the Saudi atmosphere. I’ve recently seen pieces that say women will be authorized to drive ‘within months’, but I’m not quite sure about that. Here, though, Arab News reports on new support coming from various official quarters. The piece focuses on Sheikh Ahmed Bin Baz, son of the former Grand Mufti who, in 1990, issued a fatwa forbidding women’s driving. (Note: the article mixes up Sheikh Ahmed and his father, Sheikh Abdul Aziz in a few paragraphs.) It also reports that various scholars and former members of the Shoura Council are saying that times have changed. What’s called for, one says, is a new fatwa that cancels the earlier one. That might be easier said than done, though all it would take is a strong cleric with a modern mind…
Women driving issue resurfaces
WALAA HAWARI | ARAB NEWSRIYADH: The issue of whether Saudi women should be allowed to drive came to the surface once more during a television program broadcast on the Al-Arabiya news channel.
Presenter Daud Al-Shriyan addressed the oft-debated issue of Saudi women driving in his program, Wajih Al-Sahafah (which means “Face the Press”), along with his guest Sheikh Ahmad Bin Baz, an Islamic affairs researcher and lecturer and the son of the Kingdom’s late former grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who supports women driving, said the reasons behind stopping women from driving no longer exists. He added that a fatwa on the matter, issued by the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars, was given in a particular context in the early 1990s, a time when there was much upheaval in the region, including the Gulf War, Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and the arrival of US forces, something that some conservatives described as an American invasion.
He added that it was at this time that the actions of a small group of women who got into cars and drove around was rejected by these conservatives who viewed their actions as intimidating and a move away from the Islamic status quo. Sheikh Abdul Aziz added that the issue of women driving should not be viewed through a fatwa but as a general “right.”
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Saudi Gazette reports on a case that points out a very real problem with education in Saudi Arabia. While the government may revise textbooks and curricula to get rid of extremist-tending materials, it also needs to ride herd on teachers and what they’re doing in the classroom. Here, a teacher is being investigated for offering his own interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence to his students. That interpretation is not the one condoned by the Ministry of Education or the government as a whole.
I’m not entirely clear why Islamic jurisprudence, fiqh, is being taught in a primary school to begin with. It seems a subject more suitable for secondary schools and universities. But if it’s in the curriculum, then it should be standardized and with some level of over-all accountability in its development and implementation.
Investigation into teacher using own Fiqh curriculum
DAMMAM – A primary schoolteacher in Saihat is being investigated following parents’ complaints that he had been teaching the subject of Fiqh – Islamic jurisprudence – using his own compiled course notes which he handed out to pupils instead of the set curriculum.
Al-Madina Arabic daily reported Wednesday that the teacher was being investigated by Qatif’s Education Supervision Office, with Director of the Education Information Department in the Eastern Province, Fahd Al-Enizi, saying that “procedures are under way in the case according to regulations”.
“Anyone who does not stick to the curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education will be brought to account,” Al-Enizi said. – SG
Saudi Gazette reports on the upcoming legal investigations resulting from the 2009 Jeddah floods. Efforts are being taken to clean up government in the city. The article notes that in addition to those alleged to have played a direct role in the disaster, though falsely registered claims and the like, those who played a role in covering up the problems that led to the deaths and destruction are also being investigated. Thirdly, investigations turned up other issues, not related the the floods, but problems that need to be solved. It’s a good start and does not seem to be limited to the powerless, a fear many had expressed when the investigations were first announced.
68 investigated following flood decree
JEDDAH – Sixty-eight persons, 19 of them officials and staff from the Jeddah mayoralty, are expected to undergo investigation in accordance with last Monday’s Royal Decree concerning the 2009 flood disaster, Al-Madina Arabic daily reported Thursday.
Al-Madina cited sources saying that in addition to the 19 officials and staff, 44 others connected to the events would be investigated after having been unable to appear previously “for a variety of reasons”, along with five other officials, two from the National Water Company and three from Makkah’s General Water Administration.
The sources also told the newspaper that the case file would look at three aspects, the first related to public money and recorded admissions of misuse, the second to indirect links with the event such as commercial fraud and cover-ups, and the third related to persons found to have committed violations unrelated to the floods but whose actions were discovered during the course of flood investigations.
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The head of the Taif branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is continuing to cause turmoil in Saudi Arabia over his comments last November on ikhtilat, the public ‘mingling of the sexes’. Arab News reports that a high ranking religious scholar is denying that he agrees with Sheikh Al-Ghamdi and that the two of them had ever discussed the issue.
Al-Ghamdi’s view is that ikhtilat is a novel concept, one that didn’t exist in the time of the Prophet. Then, the sexes mixed freely in public spaces and women played full and active roles in the social and commercial life of the cities. That’s an idea that scares conservatives, particularly those who confound religion with culture.
Scholar denies support to Al-Ghamdi’s views
MD AL-SULAMI | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: A leading Saudi religious scholar, Sheikh Qays Al-Mubarak has denied that he ever supported the views of Sheikh Ahmad Qasim Al-Ghamdi, the chief of the Haia in Makkah, on free mixing of genders.
“Al-Ghamdi’s claim that I supported his view on the permissibility of ikhtilat (gender mixing) is something that never happened in the past and will not in the future,” Al-Mubarak said in a question-and-answer session at the College of Shariah and Islamic Studies in the University of Qassim on Sunday.
“Al-Ghamdi’s statement about me is devoid of truth. I never discussed ikhtilat with him,” Al-Mubarak said, adding that the type of views expressed by Al-Ghamdi should not come from a serious student of Shariah.
The Islamic scholar also described Al-Ghamdi’s views as dangerous.
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I’ve had to once again close comments after a post is 14-days old. Spammers have discovered that the older posts were open for comment and have been hitting them fairly hard, wasting my time in having to clean them out.
Hopefully, I’ll be keeping posts current enough that there’ll always be something on which to comment topically. And, as before, if a post draws a large number of comments and creates an in-depth conversation, I can open comments again, at least for a while.
Thanks for your understanding.
Arab News runs an interesting opinion piece, by a former Commodore of the Saudi Navy, on what ARAMCO meant for him, as a child growing up in the Eastern Province. The writer notes that there are no streets named after any of the countless businessmen, geologists, or other scientists who helped create one of the most successful businesses in the world, a business that change the lives, generally for the better, of tens of thousands of Saudi citizens. Definitely worth reading…
Saudi Aramco at 77, a street with no name
ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIMI have always been fascinated by what Aramco does and what it stands for. I have always been attached to this company either emotionally or in reality.
Two years ago Saudi Aramco celebrated 75 years of oil exploration in Saudi Arabia. It was only 6 years after King Abdul Aziz announced the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That was in 1932, so in 1938 oil was discovered in oil well No. 7.
To a lot of analysts, the date of oil discovery in Saudi Arabia is when the map of strategic influence changed.
The celebration in Dhahran, to mark Aramco’s 75 years, was attended by King Abdullah. Hundreds of Saudi royal family members and thousands of Saudi dignitaries too attended the event. In addition, to hundreds of Americans, including some of the older generation of Americans who first came over during the 1940s to Saudi Arabia, there was a possibility at the time that President Barack Obama was going to attend.
I attended the ceremony, and when I asked a lot of Saudis who work for Aramco and ordinary Saudi citizens about some of the American pioneers who left the comfort of the US to the harsh environment of Saudi Arabia, I found out that none of the Saudis knew the name of the people who really made Aramco the most powerful company in the world. That really shook me.
So, whom do we blame. There is not a single street in the Eastern Province named after any geologist, doctor, farm developer or engineer who played a part in building Aramco.
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The floods that wracked Jeddah last November were partially a natural disaster, but they were also man-made in part. Arab News reports that the King has orders prosecutions to go forward to seek punishment of those whose actions and inactions played a role.
King orders prosecution in Jeddah flood disaster
MUHAMMAD AL-SULAMI | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah has ordered the cases of all those accused of complicity in the November floods in Jeddah referred to the watchdog for government employees and the national prosecution body.
A royal decree issued by the king also ordered a hazardous sewage lake in Jeddah, locally known as the Musk Lake, emptied within a year.
“All the accused in this case are to be referred to the Control and Investigation Board and the Prosecution and Investigation Commission according to the nature of the crime they have been accused of. This should happen after the urgent completion of procedures during criminal investigations,” King Abdullah said.
The floods killed at least 123 people and destroyed thousands of homes and vehicles.
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Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that a ‘broad range of charges’ will be levied:
Flood accused charges include bribery, fraud, embezzlement
Adnan ShabrawiJEDDAH – Those implicated in last year’s flood disaster could face a broad range of charges including bribery, forgery, abuse of power and deception, according to a local legal expert.
Dr. Omar Al-Khouli, a professor of law at King Abdulaziz University and legal adviser to the Human Rights Commission (HRC), said that a number of agencies will be handling cases, depending on the charges.
This includes the Commission for Investigation and General Prosecution and the Control and Investigation Bureau.
“If any of the accused is charged with crimes such as bribery, forgery, embezzlement and abuse of power, the Control and Investigation Bureau will look into it.”
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These papers also note that new regulations, including punishments for malfeasance, are being put together to monitor the various record keepers and registers of information:
New rules for notaries public and ‘documenters’
Adnan ShabrawiJEDDAH – New regulations are to be introduced by the Ministry of Justice to regulate the work of notaries public and “documenters” – including penalties for any transgressions, according to sources.
The ministry has been assigned to issue these new regulations after an order was issued by the King.
The new rules will see part of the work done traditionally by notaries, assigned to “documenters”.
The rules will apply to all contracts and reports which do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Shariah courts. Notaries public and “documenters” can only work if they have a license issued by the justice minister.
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I’ll put this latest announcement from the Shoura Council in the ‘Better Late Than Never’ column. The Council, supporting a fatwa condemning terrorist funding, wants to make laws to explicitly punish it. That’s a fine idea, though it’s one that might have been effected a number of years ago. Too, the statement from the Council, as reported in Arab News, seems a bit chauvinistic, focusing on the damage and danger terrorist funding threatens to Saudi Arabia. Terrorism, of course, is not restricted to the Kingdom, but has a global reach. Saudis have been implicated in funding terrorism around the world and that terrorism threatens and kills many people other than Saudis.
But still, better late than never…
Shoura backs fatwa on funding terror
MD RASOOLDEEN | ARAB NEWSRIYADH: The Shoura Council endorsed on Sunday the recent fatwa given by the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh on terror financing last month.
Describing terror financing as evil, Shoura Council Chairman Abdullah Al-Asheikh said on Sunday the Council will frame a set of regulations to combat terror financing.
He said the proposed recommendation would be sent to the Council of Ministers and would include regulations to prohibit financing terror activities and it would incorporate stringent punishments for violations since such funding could be a threat to the peace and security of the country. Last month, the 20-member Council of Senior Islamic Scholars said terror financing was a crime as big as terrorism itself because it empowers and enables sabotage, insecurity, murder and destruction of property. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah echoed this sentiment in a statement on Friday, making no distinction between funding terrorism and acts of terrorism.
“Terror financing amounts to helping acts of terrorism and supporting the existence and spread of terror,” said the fatwa.
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Until the early 1980s, diplomatic missions to Saudi Arabia were required to be located in Jeddah, with a few consulates permitted in the Eastern Province. The building of the Diplomatic Quarter (DQ) in Riyadh marked a major loosening of prior rules regarding access to Riyadh, the capital. For many years, foreigners were not permitted in Riyadh without a direct invitation from the King and men (who were about the only diplomats of the time anyway) had to wear Arab dress to visit the city.
The DQ set up an enclave for all diplomatic mission in the capital. Not only chanceries and consular offices were built, but also housing for all foreign personnel assigned to those diplomatic facilities. (Locally hired national or third-country national employees could live elsewhere.) Saudis were permitted to buy/build houses there, but there was a mysterious process (to me) through which they had to get permission. While the DQ was separate from the city, the social rules for Saudi Arabia pretty much applied there, though with a few looser interpretations—men and women could jog or ride bikes, for instance. But anticipated freedoms were never permitted in quite the way the original builders had intended; there’s an opera house on the DQ that has never seen an opera, mixed-gender facilities never worked out, etc.
Now, Arab News reports, a new Diplomatic Quarter is to be built in Jeddah. Currently, many consulates occupy buildings that were originally embassies. The city, its population, its traffic patterns, and level of economic activity have grown and changed over the past 20 years, however. Many of the consulates are overcrowded, located in areas that don’t have access to parking or public transportation, and are in areas that don’t meet current needs for security. Following the 2004 attack on the US Consulate in Jeddah, which killed several third-country national employees, the US started looking for a new and more secure location.
What the announcement of a new DQ, in south Jeddah, will do to plans for a new US Consulate, planned for north Jeddah, I don’t know. Jeddah, with its looser mores, might see more freedom in a DQ than Riyadh’s, though.
Diplomatic quarter to come up on Jeddah seafront in two years
P.K. ABDUL GHAFOUR | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: A diplomatic quarter covering eight million square meters will be built on south Jeddah’s seafront, which will include housing for Saudis and expatriates. The project is expected to begin in early 2011 and be completed in 24 months.
“It will be very similar to the diplomatic quarter in Riyadh, which is now 30 years old,” Muhammad Tayeb, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s office in Makkah Province, told Arab News.
He said that foreign consulates in Jeddah would move to the new quarter as soon as the infrastructure is ready. There are 65 foreign diplomatic missions and 30 honorary consuls in Jeddah.
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The sardonically named ‘Musk Lake’, a sewage containment facility notorious for its stench, will finally disappear, Jeddah municipality promises. This Arab News piece notes that the ‘lake’ should be dried up in a month’s time.
The newspaper found troubling evidence that the efforts to drain water and waste are cutting some corners. It discovered that at least some of the effluent is being discharged directly into the Red Sea. While this may not be raw sewage, it is not fully treated. That means that there is risk of contaminating the Red Sea in the Jeddah area. That’s not appealing on many counts, from domestic tourism to the growing Saudi fishing industry. Let’s hope better solutions can be found and quickly.
Musk Lake to be ‘fully dry in one month’
SARAH ABDULLAH | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: After the Nov. 25 floods that struck Jeddah, residents and non-residents alike became well-acquainted with the infamous Musk Lake, the municipality’s raw-sewage dumping ground to the east of the city.
Most are also probably aware that by order of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah the lake of raw sewage was closed to receiving further dumping so that it could eventually be drained.
What many probably don’t know is that since then a second lake located in the southern part of Al-Samer district just a few kilometers from the Musk Lake has cropped up and from there waste water is being dumped into the Red Sea.
According to Jeddah Municipal Council member Bassam Akhdar the second dumping grounds isn’t a “new lake” but rather a drainage pond created to help carry out the order to drain the Musk Lake. “The current situation concerning draining the Musk Lake is good and we expect that the lake should be fully dry within a month,” Akhdar told Arab News. He pointed out that a new dam and drainage pools were created in December that have helped to lower the depth of the Musk Lake from 12 meters to five meters.
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