Five years ago, Saudi Arabia held its first nationwide round of elections for Municipal Councils, with half of the positions to be elected by popular (male) vote and the other half appointed by government. The elections were for four-year terms. Something happened that led to the postponement of the scheduled next round of elections in 2009 and terms of the Council members were extended by two years.
Now, Arab News reminds us, the next round is coming up in November, 2011. The Councils and the government are preparing for them with new rules. The rules are not yet published, however. Nor has the issue of women’s participation been addressed. At the time of the 2005 elections, women were not permitted to vote because it was too complicated to set up the traditional ‘separate but equal’ parallels. The question of women’s being able to run as candidates had not (and has not yet now) been answered. There’s still some time before the scheduled elections to get things straightened out, but not a lot.
Decks cleared for holding next municipal elections
GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN | ARAB NEWSRIYADH: A new set of rules governing the municipal councils and their elections have been sent to the Council of Ministers for approval, paving the way for holding the second round of municipal elections in the Kingdom later next year.
The new legislation, which will replace the present 34-year-old election laws, will offer a broad regulatory framework for municipal elections and explain the extent of power, jurisdiction, rights and duties of councilors.
“The municipal elections will be held well in time after the extended tenure of the councils expire around November 2011,” said Ibrahim H. Al-Quayid, a member of the Riyadh Municipal Council, who bagged the highest number of votes in the first historic elections held in Saudi Arabia in 2005.
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The coddling of passengers on Saudi Airlines is going to stop! Well, maybe it’ll only be cut back a little. For some passengers.
Arab News reports that Saudi Arabian Airlines is going to impose the whopping fine of SR50 (US $13.00) on no-show or late passengers. But it’s only going to fine First Class and Business passengers. The article states that Saudia is losing SR1.79 billion (US $477 million) due to passengers who fail to cancel their flights when their travel plans change. It’s going to take a while to recoup that loss $13 at a time.
The airline is also restructuring its fare policies regarding children. Infants, who had been permitted to travel free, will be charged at 20% of the adult fare, while older children will have to pay adult fares. That will likely result in a decrease in family travel, but with flights consistently over-booked, that’s not a real problem for the airline.
Saudi Airlines imposing SR50 fine on late and no-show passengers
SARAH ABDULLAH | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Saudi Arabian Airlines has imposed a SR50 fine as part of new regulations for late and no-show passengers.
“The fines are for first and business-class passengers traveling domestically who wish to re-book, re-route or would like to cancel their flight and require a refund 24 hours before their scheduled departure,” Abdullah Al-Ajhar, Saudia vice president of public relations, told Arab News, adding that neither economy class nor international passengers are included in the new fine scheme.
The fines have been in effect since Nov. 1 with certain stipulations. Passengers wishing to cancel a flight and then require a refund will be required to pay the SR50 fine in addition to 25 percent of the original ticket price.
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Saudi scholarship students abroad have a lot of pressures on them. Dealing with a new culture, a new method of learning, a new language, etc. all make life hard. For those who forget what their primary goal, education, is though, the government reminds them that they can have their scholarships suspended or pulled, Saudi Gazette/Okaz report.
Unfortunately, regulations also put extra pressure on female students, the article says. Those female students must have a male guardian with them while abroad. The Ministry of Higher Education, which administers the scholarship program, reminds them that they cannot change guardians mid-stream, so to speak. Once a guardian is entered into the paperwork, he must stay there. That, I think, is unnecessarily strict even if it does ease the bureaucratic burden. There are far too many legitimate reasons why a guardian may have to be changed—illness, job opportunities, even death. Losing one’s guardian apparently also means losing one’s scholarship.
Scholarship suspensions motivate Saudi students
ABDUL MOHSIN AL-HARTHIRIYADH: Temporary suspensions of some Saudis’ scholarships abroad have motivated underachieving students to improve, Abdullah Al-Mousa, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education for Scholarship Affairs, has said.
Al-Mousa told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that the measure had been deemed necessary for less than three percent of students enrolled on the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarships Abroad Program – 2,168 out of approximately 100,000 male and females. “If they improve their grades and pass, they will rejoin the scholarship program,” he said. “They have shown rapid improvement, however, and have learned in two months the equivalent of a year’s worth of studies.”
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In its efforts to get more Saudis into the workplace, the government has established quotas in certain labor sectors. A fixed percentage of jobs have to be held by Saudis if the companies wish to keep their business licenses or otherwise be eligible for government benefits. Some companies have found ways to skirt the requirement by simply reporting that they employ Saudis, giving their names, and rolling on without interruption. It’s been apparent for some time, though, that the Saudis they claim to have employed never worked for the company, sometimes haven’t even heard of the company. Now, Saudi Gazette/Okaz report, the government is starting to crack down.
Saudis warned against ‘fake’ nationalization of jobs
HUSSEIN HAZAZIJEDDAH: The Ministry of Labor issued Saturday warnings to Saudis over the irregular use of their names by ‘deceitful’ companies trying to meet the quota set for the employment of Saudi nationals
The ministry said it would provide a website for Saudi nationals to check their status with the ministry to protect themselves from exploitation.
Qusay Al-Filali, head of the Labor Office in Jeddah, said that the issue was a ‘headache’ for his department as companies register the names of Saudi nationals, often without their knowledge, in order to obtain certification of the Saudization quota requirement before work visas are approved for them.
The quota, which allocates a percentage of jobs for Saudi nationals, varies between sectors, from five to 20 percent of a company’s workforce. Some companies have routinely skirted this quota through falsified paperwork and temporary Saudi hires.
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The negative media coerage surrounding abuse of domestic workers has the Recruitment Committee of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce & Industry upset. According to this piece in Arab News, they believe the coverage is unfair, that it focuses solely on the negatives and ignores the positive. While I’m sympathetic to a degree—yes, media globally tends to focus on the negative—the fact that so many maids are abused, even if a minute fraction of the total number, is important. Vicious beatings, murders, and rapes of domestics is newsworthy; that thousands meet no such abuse is just a data point.
I do not think that the majority of Saudis abuse their workers, at least to the extent we’ve been seeing recently. (I offer the qualification because even the government standards of care are deficient, in my view.) A sufficient number of Saudis do so, however, and it cannot but blacken the reputation of all Saudis. And yes, I’ll agree that there are crazy people in any society, people who for whatever reason abuse those in their charge. It doesn’t change the perceptions of others, though. And as we know, perceptions are at least as important as facts.
If the Saudis want to change perceptions, it won’t be by downplaying the abuse. It will only come when the abuse is truly minimized, if not completely eradicated.
RCCI: Saudi trend of maid abuse ‘media fabrication’
WALAA HAWARI | ARAB NEWSRIYADH: The head of the Recruitment Committee at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI), Saad Al-Baddah, blamed the Saudi media on Saturday for exaggerating the problems of abused maids.
“Our media did not play a balanced role,” he said. “It only pointed out the negativity and did not bother to bring positive examples.”
He said reporters should send photographers to the airport to take photos of the many maids who depart after many years of work in the country, their arms laden with gifts from their benevolent Saudi employers, their eyes filled with tears of sadness at their departure and their minds filled with warm memories of their Saudi experience.
Al-Baddah said that media should also underscore punishments meted out to Saudi employers who abuse their servants and the role of Saudi human rights organizations in responding to abuse cases.
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The awarding of 2022 World Cup venue to Qatar has caused a splash in international and regional media. For the Gulf Arabs, it’s seen as quite a victory. Others aren’t quite so sure. Some Americans see it as another repudiation (or is that ‘refudiation’?) of Pres. Obama’s power. Other media question whether Qatar either deserves to host the games or is capable of providing a welcoming environment.
Arab News editorializes on the issue, with Tariq Al-Maeena suggesting that the point of the games—football, aka soccer—is not dependent on alcohol consumption (the worry of some), sexy post-game parties, or a country’s attitude toward gays. (This Reuters piece, run in Asharq Alawsat, lays out the complaints.)
Well, international sports aren’t just sports. They do have a political aspect (viz. US President Nixon and ‘Ping Pong Diplomacy‘). A country’s politics and social views is pertinent to some extent. That Qatari women, as with most women in the Gulf States, enjoy a lesser suite of rights is something that bears attention. The availability of alcohol, I think, while not directly associated with football, has become very much a part of it around the globe. It will be a problem that Qatar needs to sort out—it says it has. Then there’s the matter of dress. Never formal, international football tends to move toward the limits of informal. There were plenty of photos of bikini-clad supporters during this year’s World Cup in South Africa. Whether this leads to pushing a more conservative approach in 2022 or a shock to the Qatari system, we’ll have to see.
Qatar bags the cup and more
Tariq A. Al-MaeenaThe decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar immediately prompted criticism outside the Middle East on the selection of this tiny state-nation to host football’s greatest tournament.
Although it was the Australians, the United States, Japan and Korea that lost out in the bid, it was in the English press that most of the condemnation erupted.
While the members of the Qatar bid committee in Zurich were immediately peppered with questions on terrorism, the treatment of women and the blistering heat in the smallest country to stage the World Cup finals, the Qatari committee chairman Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Thani, spoke of “misconceptions” in relation to the climate and assured those present to “get beyond these perceptions.”
But the British press was not readily assured, or very understanding. Reports by Amnesty International last May were dug up as references to their concerns in relation to Qatar. Their report, which covers the period January to December 2009 but is still regarded as current, claims women face discrimination and violence and says hundreds of people continued to be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality.
The report also details how at least 18 people, mostly foreign nationals, were sentenced to flogging of between 40 and 100 lashes for offenses related to “illicit sexual relations” or alcohol consumption. In June this year Amnesty International called on Qatar to “lift restrictions on the rights to freedom of opinion and expression and to take steps to promote freedom of the press.”
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Saudi media are all reporting that the King has undergone a second, scheduled operation to resolve problems with his back. They note that the government is trying to keep his health concerns as transparent as possible. This is something quite different than was the case with the late King Fahd, whose medical condition was always veiled.
King Abdullah 2nd Back Operation Successful – Saudi Royal Court
Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat – The Saudi Arabian Royal Court has issued a statement revealing that the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz underwent a second successful back operation in New York yesterday. The statement added that the next step is for the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to begin physical therapy.
This second operation was to stabilize a number of vertebrae in King Abdullah’s spinal cord and complete the earlier surgery he underwent last week in accordance with the treatment plan recommended by the medical team
The first surgery at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York extracted the clot and corrected the disc. Days later, Saudi officials said King Abdullah was walking again and that the operation had been successful.
A bit of a war is breaking out among Saudi women, it appears. Last week, Arab News ran a piece from the Arabic daily Al-Watan in which a woman lamented that Saudi children were being raised by foreign maids and nannies, pointing out that very few women were picking up their kids from school. Today, there’s a response from a working woman who says she’d love to be able to do that, but because of her job, she simply cannot. She asks if that makes her a lesser mother and answers in the negative.
The fact that mothers work is pretty much a world standard now. We’ve pretty much passed the time where a single income-earner was able to afford even the necessities of daily family life so spouses end up working. Too, the original complaint does not at all address the fact of single mothers who must work to support their families, with no good alternatives available to them. The arguments have been flying around every country in the world, with varying levels of guilt and accusation, for decades now. It’s hitting Saudi society now. There is no single answer to the problem, though. Each family, each woman is going to have to come up with the best they can do under their particular circumstances.
Factors behind inability to give kids time they deserve
HALLA ANGAWIThe author, disheartened by a recurrent scenario at school when she picks up her children, talks about the number of maids present in lieu of mothers who are sleeping at home or who should be leaving work to pick up their children.
She ends the article with an example of the dire consequences of handing over children to the care of the maids and drivers. I speak as a working mother when I say that while these cases exist, it is an unjust depiction of mothers in general and does not take into consideration personal, external, economic, and other factors.
The article examines some serious problems in our society. However, the author failed miserably at making a balanced argument that showcases some of the varied circumstances of mothers. The main focus portrayed was that of mothers who spend their days sleeping and hand over their children to maids.
While a sizable portion may constitute this type of mother, there are other categories that were not alluded to at all; single mothers who must provide for their family, married mothers for whom work may or may not be an option, and mothers who possess talent, skills, and knowledge that serve the greater humanity by applying them in the workforce, etc.
“How is it possible for a mother, whether employed or unemployed, to hand over her small kids to a fake mother?” Let me ask the author another question: Have you ever thought that some mothers do not have a choice but to work in order to feed their children and to send them to these schools from which they cannot pick them up?
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Saudi Gazette/Okaz report on the rising incidence of violence against parents in Saudi Arabia. While termed ‘disobedience’, what actually involved is the sin/crime of uqooq (Thanks, Majed!), violence, physical, verbal, and by the proxy of refusing financial support to distressed parents. The article points out that some regions of the country are experiencing the problem more severely than other.
Cases of disobeying sons on the rise
NAEEM TAMEEM AL-HAKEEM120 court cases a month in JeddahJEDDAH: Umm Muhammad is an elderly lady who filed a case of disobedience at the Summary Court in Jeddah against her son who tried to hit her. The son was sentenced to jail.
Umm Muhammad is one of an average 120 mothers and fathers showing up at Jeddah courts filing cases of disobedience against their rebellious sons. The law considers assault on parents a major crime.
The rising cases of disobedience have resulted in the Summary Court calling on academics, specialized foundations and civil institutions to study and diagnose the issue before it spreads. The court announced a 20 percent increase in such cases this year, saying that one judge’s office received 14 cases filed by fathers against sons, accusing them of disobedience, verbal assault and attempting to beat them.
The rate of disobedience cases per judge at the Summary and Juvenile courts in Jeddah is seven cases a month. The average number of cases is 120.
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Salaries in Saudi Arabia are remarkably low, government salaries included. As a result, many Saudis either take second jobs, or as this Arab News piece notes, become silent partners in businesses when they can’t get permission for that second job. The first is generally against the law for Saudi bureaucrats: they’re not permitted to hold second jobs. The second is an attempt to circumvent the prior law by breaking a second law, hidden partnerships. Now, the Shoura Council is being asked to change the law to permit government workers to take part in commercial activities freely.
While reducing law-breaking is usually a good idea, I’m not sure this is the right response. Other governments around the world recognize the problems and tend to limit what their bureaucrats can do off the official clock. The obvious potential problem is conflict of interest, that a bureaucrat will use his official position to improve his unofficial business. Then there’s competition for the 24 hours of the day. Will a worker be focused on his daily job for all the hours of the official day? Or will he, particularly in times of business crisis, be busy with his own concerns rather than his official ones?
Saudi incomes, according to the story, have been growing rapidly over the past ten years. Government employees, though, saw their salaries frozen for close to 20 years, until King Abdullah ordered an across-the-board increase in 2005. Government salaries still appear to lag significantly behind private sector incomes, thus the quest for second-incomes. Inflation is on the high side in the Kingdom now, too, putting even more pressure on government workers. Perhaps the government should look at another salary increase to keep its workers on the right side of the law.
Allow civil servants to own businesses, Shoura urged
RIYADH: Economists are calling on the Shoura Council to consider allowing government officials to engage in commercial activities due to increases in the costs of living.
The economists say this will put an end to the rampant practice of civil servants undertaking business ventures in other people’s names, a growing phenomenon that has negatively affected Saudization.
The demand coincides with the recent release of a report by Global Finance showing that the per capita income of Saudi citizens has seen a substantial increase in the current year.
Noted economist Tala’at Hafez said that in terms of the GDP per capita income of individuals, the Kingdom holds the sixth position among Arab states and 38th among 182 countries listed in the report. GDP per capita income in Saudi Arabia jumped from $23,221 to $23,701 during 2010.
According to Hafez, the Global Finance report shows that the per capita income of Saudi citizens saw a substantial growth over the last 10 years. It shot up from about $6,910 in 2000 to $23,701 in 2010, a three-fold increase within a decade. He attributed this mainly to the surge in oil prices that hit a record level of $147 per barrel in mid-2008.
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The Saudi government’s foreign scholarship program has sent tens of thousands of young Saudis abroad. The students are not necessarily prepared for the drastic contrasts in culture and law that face them, nor are they always academically prepared. Arab News reports on a forum held in Riyadh to better prepare the next tranche of students. In addition to warning them to stay away from sketchy political organizations—i.e., fronts for terrorist groups—the speakers at the forum (including students with first hand experience) offered practical tips on how to thrive in a foreign environment. Issues such as dealing with visa requirements and how to open bank accounts. Government spokesmen reminded them that they represent Saudi Arabia and should be on their best behavior.
Scholarship students warned against joining outlawed groups
MAHER ABBAS | ARAB NEWSRIYADH: Major problems faced by Saudi freshmen in foreign universities were discussed at a forum in Riyadh on Wednesday.
Speaking to an audience of students who have qualified for the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program at the third day of the forum, which began on Monday, Muhammad Al-Bajad, a faculty member at Prince Naif University for Security Sciences, warned students about joining groups or parties that are banned in the countries where they go.
“A student should not become involved in any activity that violates the law of that country, and should not make friends with students who are unsafe to associate with,” Al-Bajad said.
He further warned against giving contributions or gifts to illegal or unlicensed organizations.
Students should also clarify legal issues with the Saudi cultural attachés or student clubs in order to avoid any embarrassing situations, he said.
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Arab News reports that relatively few Saudi women have been entangled in Al-Qaeda operations within the country. It cites only 15 women as having been active participants, though notes that others seem to have been passive cooperators, if not active. If a terrorist, disguised as a woman, is traveling with a group of women to avoid surveillance, I’d classify that group as supportive to some degree. The story does not relate whether these women were subject to investigation.
I’m not alleging that female support of or active participation in operations is large in Saudi Arabia. I don’t think that at all. But I do think the report, by using a narrow definition, is missing some of the story. I acknowledge, too, that it well may be that the government could not make a case against these borderline supporters and thus did not report them.
Saudi women played a marginal role in deviant group’s activities
MUHAMMAD AL-SULAMI | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: The role of Saudi women in Al-Qaeda is, apparently, marginal; only 15 women have been established to have links with the terrorist organization.
The tasks of women terrorists in the earlier days were confined to assisting in logistic matters such as helping wanted militants travel without attracting police attention in addition to offering moral support to them. Gradually some of them turned to terror recruiters, financiers and even a media relations officer like Bint Najd, who distributed terror propaganda online.
Al-Qaeda started recruiting women in the Kingdom in 2004. The first known female terrorist was the wife of the Kingdom’s Al-Qaeda chief Saleh Al-Oufi, who was killed in 2005.
Many terror activists donned women’s clothes and moved in women’s company to cross police checkpoints undetected. Ali bin Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, one of the 19 Al-Qaeda men wanted by the Interior Ministry in the past, used to travel between Madinah and Jeddah wearing abaya and in the company of women before he surrendered to Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs Prince Muhammad bin Naif in 2003. His Moroccan wife was also with him.
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