I’m not a big fan of Lex Talionis, an-eye-for-an-eye, and thus would not make a very good Saudi. The Saudi legal system falls back on that form of retributive justice more than I care for. In the case of the Sri Lankan maid who returned from her job in Riyadh with at least 19 nails embedded in her body, allegedly put there by her Saudi employers, I might make an exception.
Photo: Arab News
Lankan officials seek justice for maid in nails & needles case
MOHAMMED RASOOLDEEN, ARAB NEWSRIYADH: Sri Lankan officials strongly urged authorities in Saudi Arabia on Friday to investigate and bring to justice the persons responsible for torturing L.T. Ariyawathi, a 49-year-old Sri Lankan housemaid by heating up nails and needles and pushing them into her legs, arms, hands and forehead.
The maid said the Saudi couple she worked for in a Riyadh household committed the crime as a form of punishment. The couple has not been identified and Saudi officials were not available for comment on Friday.
Lankan Justice Ministry sources told Arab News on Friday that legal counsel would be provided to the maid to file a case in Saudi Arabia over the incident.
“The Bureau (of Foreign Employment) will make all arrangements to take her to Saudi Arabia to testify,” said L.K. Ruhunuge of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.
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I do not think this behavior typical of Saudis or Saudi employers of domestic workers: this act is singularly depraved. But the Saudi system for employing foreign domestic workers does not do nearly enough to protect those workers. Other aspects of Saudi society—primarily, privacy within one’s own home, but also a disdain for foreigners, women, and non-Muslims—make the situation worse. With this worker now back in Sri Lanka, conducting a full investigation into the case will be difficult and will rely on the good will of Saudi authorities. I truly do hope they step up. It’s not just the employer(s) who are shamed by this crime, but the whole of Saudi society. It’s seen internationally as ‘just another example of Saudi brutality’.
It’s Ramadan, so it must be time for another ‘Tash Ma Tash’ controversy! Arab News reports…
This time around, the target is polygamy. The writers turn it around to a matter of polyandry, though, and that’s got some people hot under the collar. Rather than seeing it as a social critique, the humor-impaired see it as an attack on religion. It’s hardly that… Islam, after all, doesn’t require that a man have four wives. It only permits it. The choice to have multiple wives is a personal and somewhat-social matter. But it certainly has an effect on the supernumerary wives. And that is exactly the point this popular TV show was making.
Tash Ma Tash again stirs controversy
FATIMA SIDIYAJEDDAH: A controversial episode from a satirical Saudi television show was finally aired on Saturday, despite coming under fire from scholars and viewers.
The “Multiple Husbands” episode, the fourth to be shown on the 17th series of Tash Ma Tash, revolves around a woman with four husbands who wants to divorce one so she can marry for the fifth time.
It is based on Saudi columnist Nadine Al-Bidair’s article “My Four Husbands and I,” published last December in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masri Al-Youm. The column created a major Islamic debate and received massive criticism.
In the episode, the woman marries her second husband because the first stops caring about his looks after five years of marriage as well as being too busy with work.
The woman marries the third husband as part of a dare with her friends. She then weds the fourth because he is Syrian and by that point she is bored with Saudi men.
She tells her husbands that she wants a fifth because she wants to feel young again, but adds that she needs to divorce one of them first in order to achieve this.
After the men draw lots, she divorces the husband who draws the short straw.
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According to Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, when enough members of Saudi society are convinced that it’s a good thing for women to drive.
In his column in Asharq Alawsat, he says that efforts to push the government to wave its magic wand and simply say, ‘Women shall drive!’ is misguided. That’s not the way social change works, particularly in the face of strong opposition from other members of society. He notes, correctly, that incidents don’t generally result in change, but instead, a long stream of incidents that upset larger and larger numbers of people. Eventually, that mass grows great enough to offer government the protection it needs to make drastic change. Saudi Arabian society has complications that other countries might not have, at least not the same complications. While the mass of public opinion might lean one way, some groups within the country have voices that count more than others. Unfortunately for women drivers, many of the religious conservatives have very loud and weighty voices. Even here, though, there are clerics who want to see women behind the wheel, or at least have the right to be there.
Al-Rashid does note that no one really knows what the Saudi population thinks about women’s driving, due to a lack of polling data. A poll on the subject would be very helpful, I think.
Women Will Not Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia!
Abdul Rahman Al-RashidRepeated appeals to the official authorities in Saudi Arabia to put an end to the ban on women being allowed to drive have been to no avail. Women will not be sitting in the driver’s seat anytime soon, despite a huge number of text messages and emails calling for this by those who advocate women being permitted to drive.
All campaigns to remedy this situation have failed, and in my opinion this is as a result of a mistake being made by attempting to take a shortcut with regards to convincing the government to change its position on this issue. I personally believe that it is impossible to convince any government, regardless of one’s influence, of something without there first being widespread public acceptance of the idea. Those who oppose this idea base their opposition on the official rejection of this, as well as on religious and social aspects as well. It may be difficult for others, by which I mean those outside of Saudi Arabia, to believe that a large proportion of Saudi Arabian men and women are against the idea of women driving cars, especially as this is something normal and ordinary to them, and women also ride donkeys, horses, and camels. Those outside of Saudi Arabia believe that this ban exists in opposition to the will of the public, but we do not know if this is true, in light of the lack of polling information to reveal public opinion on this issue.
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Here’s an article, from Saudi Gazette/Okaz, that starts out well: A Saudi cleric supporting athletics for women. It starts to run into the ground, however, as the sheikh starts enumerating those sports he thinks inappropriate. I can sort of see boxing, perhaps even weightlifting (but only if one considers those sports to be ‘unfeminine’). He really starts to lose me when he gets to car racing and bicycling.
Judge sees no harm in women’s sports
Abdullah Al-DaniJEDDAH – A Saudi cleric has encouraged women to engage in modern sports activities that are compatible with the teachings of the Islamic Shariah.
Sheikh Nasser Al-Dawood, chief judge at the Ministry of Justice, said that sports such as volleyball, basketball, tennis, running, horse riding, swimming, rowing and shooting are categorized under permissible fun in Islam for both men and women. No-one has the authority to ban what Allah has made Halal (permissible), the Sheikh said.
A Muslim woman must not wear revealing clothes that expose her body when practicing sports or be in direct contact with men when doing so, he said.
Al-Dawood, however, argued that some sports such as boxing, weightlifting, car racing and bicycling do not suit the genetic and physical make-up of the female body.
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But the dear sheikh needs to take some biology classes when he say the following:
Virgin women, he warned, should not put their innocence at risk practicing sports like wrestling, boxing, and aerobics.
While ‘speechless’ might be an appropriate response, instead I’ll suggest that a society that puts such a high value on a woman’s virginity needs to work on re-setting its priorities. Besides, where’s his condemnation of horseback riding? It’s pretty well known that riding horses has spelled the end to more than a few hymens (if only in excuse). But clearly, women rode horses at the time of the Prophet. So what gives?
What gives is that by trying to keep artificial and antiquated notions alive, the sheikh gets wrapped up in inconsistencies which, if examined, prove to be self-contradictory and rather silly.
Still, he’s taken a step in the right direction, even if skewed…
The Breitbart news aggregator carries this AFP story about a group of Saudi girls in the Eastern Province who found themselves in a bit of trouble for wearing Emo gear. At the least, this suggests that in addition to Metal and Hip-Hop, other Western musical forms are having an influence in the Kingdom. It’s a bit of a pity, though, that the lamest of the lame forms of music and social identification finds a new audience…
Saudi ‘emo’ girls busted by religious cops: report
Saudi Arabia’s religious police have arrested 10 “emo” women for allegedly causing a disturbance in a coffee shop, Al-Yaum newspaper reported on Saturday.
The coffee shop owner in the eastern city of Dammam called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to complain after the young women, dressed and made up in the “emo” fashion, apparently began disturbing other clients.
The religious police then called their parents to come and collect the women, and to sign pledges that the girls would not repeat their ostensibly offensive un-Islamic behaviour and dress.
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UPDATE: I do note—and a commenter calls me to task—that both dress and behavior are behind these girls’ problem. The article states that. ‘Un-Islamic dress’ is a social crime that some in Saudi Arabia believe should be criminally sanctioned, along with ‘Un-Islamic appearance’, i.e., long hair on men, in styles that differ from traditional Bedouin long hair styles. Clearly, some people found these girls’ clothing to be objectionable. As to what their exact behavior was, the article does not state. Saudi Gazette‘s reprise of the AFP story is no more illuminating:
Over the past several months, I’ve pointed to the controversy over comments made last year by Sheikh Al-Ghamdi, head of the religious police in Mecca, concerning the mixing of the sexes in public venues. While some have come to his support, either vocally or by not removing him from his job for wandering too far from the religiously acceptable, others have vehemently opposed his views.
Arab News reports that someone has ginned up a ‘grassroots’ movement among women to argue that men and women aren’t safe to be in each other’s company, even in public. The efforts seems to be what in the US is called ‘astroturfing’, that is, rather than grassroots, it’s a matter of artificial grass (Astroturf [TM]), an effort designed by others but cloaked in what appears to be populist sentiment.
I’ve no doubt that there are thousands of Saudi women who think there’s something wrong with the public mingling of the sexes. I believe them to be in the minority of Saudis—men or women—however. There are, after all, people who think that the moon landings of the 1960s-70s were staged, too. And then there are those who aren’t quite sure if the world is round or flat.
In any event, the paper does give them space to say what bothers them:
Women oppose free mixing
MOHD AL-SULAMI | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: More than 1,600 Saudi women have backed an open letter to top Saudi leaders and religious scholars, expressing support for the Kingdom’s ban on the free mixing of men and women.
The letter, which is on the Noor Al-Islam website, said women in Saudi Arabia are saddened by the publication of news reports and articles calling for the free mixing of men and women in the Kingdom.
Saudi woman Maryam Al-Khalifa said she is surprised to see some writers attacking Islamic scholars for objecting to gender mixing. “Ahmed Al-Ghamdi described such scholars as astray,” she said, asking how it is possible for him to use such words to describe people who want to protect women.
She added that people who call for the free mixing of men and women do not entertain good intentions for women, adding that such people want to force women into becoming the victims of sex abuse, harassment, rape and infectious diseases such as AIDS.
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I’d note that if the situation these women describe is true, it says very bad things about Saudi men. Could it possibly be true that they would rape any non-related women they were next to, just because she was next to them? Do Saudi men have such poor control over their libidos that every women they see is an available sex partner? If so, perhaps the Saudi education system and mosques might want to think about new subject matter for classes and sermons….
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
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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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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While the unemployment rate for Saudi men is troublesomely high, that for women is appalling. Arab News reports on a human resources forum in which Ministry of Labor officials express concern about the levels of unemployment and point out that most work is being done by expats. The Ministry is giving itself 25 years to fix the problems. I don’t think they have that long before unemployment becomes an immediate and political crisis.
Employing women at a higher rate will not solve the problems of male unemployment. It might buy a bit of time, by raising family incomes, but even that comes at a price. Particularly in patriarchal societies, it’s difficult to have women earning as much as or more than men. It’s not an economic issue, but a psychological one. Those are much more intractable problems.
Still, it is incredible that over half of half of the population is not able to find work for a complex of reasons, most of them irrationally based on some idealized concept of the perfect Islamic society that never existed and never will.
65% of Saudi women are unemployed
HAYAT AL-GHAMDI | ARAB NEWSABHA: Only 35 percent of qualified Saudi women are employed, said Mufrej Al-Haqabani, deputy labor minister for planning and development.
“This is a low rate and does not augur well,” he said.
Presenting a working paper at a forum on human resources here, he said expatriates accounted for 53 percent of the workforce in the private sector in 2009 while Saudis represented 47 percent.
Al-Haqabani emphasized that fighting unemployment among Saudis is a joint responsibility, adding that it does not fall on his ministry alone.
He said the Council of Ministers approved the Kingdom’s employment strategy last year and gave 25 years to fulfill its objectives.
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Writing in the Arabic daily Eqtisadiah, here translated by Arab News, Turki Al-Dakheel notes with dismay how badly many Saudis treat their housemaids. Rather than a functional part of the household, he argues, too many see them as mere accessories, things to which women can point to show that they’re up there somewhere on the social scale. Their treatment is utterly improper, against human rights, and against Islamic norms he says. The way they are treated isn’t even in line with Bedouin ethics.
He point out, too, that many Saudis are confused about what is traditional practice and what is called for by Islam. He’d like to see the cruelty stopped.
Torturing housemaids
Turki Al-Dakheel — EqtisadiahDO we consider the housemaid to be a human being? Or is she just a machine like a washing machine and a refrigerator? Some of us, because of excessive laziness and a disdain of doing what we consider easy jobs, cannot do without a housemaid even if there are no children in the house.
The housemaid in this case will be used as something to brag about. She will drag herself behind the husband and wife carrying the shopping bags. This has become the typical picture of a Saudi family, whether large or small. Ostentatiousness is a disease eating away at our society. The main purpose of hiring a housemaid is so the wife can boast of having a servant who blindly obeys her orders.
The poor housemaid may not be paid her salary for months. Her passport will be locked away from her. She will be forced to sleep in a room even dogs would shy from. She may constantly lose her precious things.
Is this not a frightening brutality? The bad treatment of housemaids is totally against human rights and international norms.
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The case of a Saudi woman who alleges that members of the Tabuk Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice assaulted her continues. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that various citizens have testified before criminal prosecutors, apparently backing up the woman’s story. The report also notes that four of the Haya members have been reported as suspended and that the man whose phone call started the whole mess has been questioned.
It does seem that many members of the Commission are a little too quick to assume the worst of people. And of course, if it were a problem for women to travel freely within the Kingdom, the issue would never have come up in the first place…
Witnesses testify in Tabuk woman’s case against Hai’a
Ahmad Al-AtawiTABUK – Mosque worshipers who went to the aid last Friday of a woman allegedly physically assaulted by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) gave their testimonies to the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution on Thursday.
“It’s a great weight off our minds,” said one after making his official statement. “We’ve given our testimonies and done everything our conscience and sense of patriotism dictated.”
The testimonies were given at the behest of the worshipers themselves, who had been in a mosque at sundown when they heard the 20-year-old woman’s screams emanating from the next door offices of the Hai’a.
The incident, reported by Saudi Gazette on April 4, began when the worshippers informed the police and officers arrived to take her to Sulaimaniya Police Station by private car.
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