Despite claims about reforming, Saudi Arabia ruthlessly cracks down on its dissidents. Last year, women’s rights activist Salma al-Shehab was sentenced to 34 years in prison for a tweet criticizing Saudi Arabia. And in January of this year, Saudi Arabia sentenced a 71-year-old respected academic, Awad Al-Qarni, to death for sharing on WhatsApp what it regarded as hostile news about the Saudi government. According to the Mirror:
Awad Al-Qarni, 65, was arrested in September 2017 at the start of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s sweeping crackdown against dissent, which saw some of the kingdom’s prominent academics, journalists, and preachers thrown into prison.
The Saudi system is based on Wahhabism, despite the kingdom’s talk of reform and its allowing woman to drive since 2018. Dissidents are not tolerated and women remain under a guardianship program in accordance with Quran 4:34:
“Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.”
“Saudi fitness instructor Manahel al-Otaibi latest targeted in crackdown on dissent in kingdom,” Associated Press, June 1, 2023:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A 29-year-old fitness instructor popular on social media in Saudi Arabia faces charges that could see her imprisoned over her posts, becoming the latest person targeted in a crackdown in the kingdom.
The case against Manahel al-Otaibi shows the limits of expression in Saudi Arabia, even for those like al-Otaibi who offer support to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s moves toward liberalizing some aspects of life in the ultraconservative kingdom. Meanwhile, Prince Mohammed has solidified his power in part through imprisoning the country’s elite and others who speak out as his father, 87-year-old King Salman, retains formal control.
“They say they welcome women and that women can wear whatever — but at the end what is happening is that it’s only for Westerners,” said Lina Alhathloul, the head of monitoring and advocacy at ALQST, a London-based group advocating for human rights in Saudi Arabia that’s followed al-Otaibi’s case. Alhathloul’s sister, Loujain, remains in the kingdom due to a travel ban following a prison sentence for her own activism….
Al-Otaibi, who posted fitness videos on Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, faces charges of “defaming the kingdom at home and abroad, calling for rebellion against public order and society’s traditions and customs, and challenging the judiciary and its justice,” according to court documents seen by The Associated Press. Her posts included advocacy for liberal dress codes for women, LGBTQ+ rights and the abolition of Saudi Arabia male guardianship laws.
The documents also accuse her of appearing in indecent clothing and posting Arabic hashtags that include the phrase “overthrow the government”….
Linde B. says
We need to seriously pray to God Almighty for these brave women who speak out against the totalitarian governments of Islamic countries. + And to anyone here
who does not believe in God, you should speak up and write a letter to your elected person in Congress, asking him or her to
decline foreign aid to any Islamic country.
Keith O says
Linde B, I seriously doubt that praying to your God will achieve anything, given the total lack of action over the millennia by said deity.
The only way anything gets done from a human perspective is from human action.
And, in the case of the Saudi’s, nothing will get done as long as humans have a total reliance upon people such as them for oil.
You want to bring about change? then yes, make your political masters earn their obscene pay packets, get them to act.
bill says
You are absolutely correct. Look for evidence that ‘god’ ‘allah’ or whatever one calls him/her. You just cannot find any. The deity does not even protect his followers from earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions. Neither did he/she teach his/her creation anything. Humanity had to learn from its mistakes and experiments. We did not know about bacteria until the 19th century. how many millions of lives would have been saved if we had known about it earlier. Then there is electricty. The first time humanity showed some sign of curiousity and independant thought he/she kicked them out of Eden! The only thing the deity ever taught was obedience
Walter Sieruk says
When that official of Saudi Arabia made a statement about women in that nation are now allowed to wear whatever they want. That man must be very disingenuous when he said that. Let’s not be gullible or naïve by believing him. For the misogyny in that, Islamic country is as strong as ever.
For Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a kingdom of callous brutal misogyny of the most heinously heartless kind there is. Be it the vicious, malicious and murderous Islamic practice of what is so very inappropriately called in the Islamic world “honor killing” and also the brutal cruel , savage Islamic tradition so unfittingly called “female circumcision “ which is reality of female genital mutilation. And other Islamic evils
The absurd concept of an idea that some politically correct people have o fa “Word Hijab Day” is nonsense Related to that absurd declaration was that on March 11, 2002 in Saudi Arabia a girls dorm caught on fire, the girls naturally rushed out of that dorm that was on fire. In their hast to escape the flames they forgot to take and put on their face veils. Those Islamic state police of Saudi Arabia with this totally unreasonable and heartless Islamic mindset forced all the girls back into the dorm that was on fire. Only because they didn’t have their face veils. So all those girls did a horrible painful death .This is worse than tragic and sad, this is the murderous misogyny of the Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Furthermore that tragedy of the terrible burning to death of those young girls because of the cruel oppression of Islam’s “values” is a brutal reminder of the harsh reality is a reflection of the information revealed in the book by Brigitte Gabriel entitled THEY MUST BE STOPPED.
Which informs the reader on page 171 “Control of behavior and disregard for human life are key elements in Islamic ideology.”
FYI says
allah insists women wear the hijab but in the SAME koran he clearly doesn’t understand Human reproductive biology{koran 86:6-7}[as ex-muslims know,despite the best efforts of islamic ‘holy’ men to fiddle the Arabic-a trick that just won’t work in the age of the internet}
So allah is neither al-knowing {as he claims} nor can he be the creator {as he clearly does not understand the science behind creation}
allah’s mind is STILL in the 7th-8th century.
allah is like the Wizard of Oz when the curtain falls;an imposter and a pretender,desperately trying to emulate the Biblical God.
To stop muslims from figuring it out muslim ‘holy men’ say the Bible was corrupted but the Laws of Moses{written in the Torah} have never changed.
John Smith says
You’ve been giving poor old allah a hard time lately.
FYI says
you know you are right.Maybe i should focus on muhammed instead and completely ignore allah and relegate him to second place below muhammed.
After all,that’s what the dawah people do.”The prophet says this..the prophet says that”
I mean allah doesn’t get a look in much these days with the dawah folk!
allah’s role in islam to serve muhammed.
Draw a cartoon of allah with his 1 leg and 2 right hands?Nobody cares.
Draw a cartoon of muhammed flying around up in the clouds on BURAQ his agical flying donkey with a woman’s face and it is allahu akbar time.
bill says
Actually it is best not to say ‘allah or god’ claims such things as allah/god has no voice. Inspite of what the prophets and Moham. claim, nobody has ever spoken to god or heard him/her. Men assert that he/she claims to be omnipotent and omnicient. It is all mythology created by men.
tim gallagher says
I doubt whether islam will ever change and the misogynistic repression and total control of women and girls is central to islam’s nature. Then again, that report here at Jihad watch about how Iranians are deserting mosques was a good sign. maybe someday enough Muslims will be so ashamed about living the primtive type life that islam imposes that they will find a way to ditch islam and join the modern world. islam wants people to go on living the primitive lives that people lived in 7th century Arabia, back in the good old days of that invented piece of crap, Muhammad. I doubt whether women in Saudi Arabia will ever make much progress against the thuggish scum in charge in that sorry, primitive country.
OLD GUY says
Saudi Arabia is NOT a friend or ally, they are using their oil wealth which Europe and America built up for them to corrupt our government and higher education system.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah, I’ve stopped being optimistic about MbS for now at least