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Posts Tagged ‘Saudi Arabia’

Iran cancels Islamic Solidarity Games

April 30th, 2009 | Comments Off

So much for that “Islamic solidarity” stuff. Tehran has canceled the Islamic Solidarity Games after Saudi Arabia asked Iran to remove the term Persian Gulf from game medals and brochures. The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) Secretary General Saleh Gazdar and Technical Committee Chairman Mohammad Bashir Al-Trabosli said in a Tehran meeting that Arab states [...]

Saudis release Christian blogger after ten weeks in custody

April 14th, 2009 | 3 Comments

Good news! Hamoud Bin Saleh, who was arrested in January after announcing on his blog that he had converted from Islam to Christianity, has been released from detention. Although he was freed in late March, the news was only reported today by Middle East Concern. Hamoud was arrested on 13th January 2009 and detained at [...]

Divorce can be expensive for Saudi women

March 31st, 2009 | Comments Off

Many Saudi Arabian women seek divorce through khula, a provision of Sharia law that requires the wife to provide financial compensation to her husband. Such compensation can entail repayment of the dowry plus other expenses incurred during the marriage. Sara, a 32-year-old mother of three children, has been trying to secure a divorce from her [...]

Saudi Arabia censors CD covers

March 29th, 2009 | Comments Off

Susie, an American woman in Saudi Arabia, has made the shocking discovery that vice cops with the Committee for the Protection of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CVPVP) censor CD covers. She recently bought her son a copy of Kate Perry’s One of the Boys. When he opened up the CD, we were both astonished [...]

Female-run alcohol factory busted in Saudi Arabia

February 20th, 2009 | 1 Comment

These women are in big trouble. Saudi religious police say they have uncovered the country’s first female-run alcohol factory, in the eastern city of Dammam. Alcohol production and consumption is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia, which adheres to the fundamentalist Wahabi interpretation of Islam. The alleged illegal alcohol factory was located inside an empty house, [...]

The uniqueness of Wahhabist Islam

February 13th, 2009 | Comments Off

The Voice of the Copts has a long list of beliefs and practices said to be unique to Wahhabism, the fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam followed in Saudi Arabia.  Here are a few snippets. First of all, Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam, does not have a codified criminal law and modern courts do not [...]

Why is Blogger blocking Saudi Christian’s weblog?

February 1st, 2009 | 3 Comments

Saudi Arabian authorities last month arrested Hamoud Bin Saleh and blocked his blog, Saudi Masihi, after he announced his conversion from Islam to Christianity. So, no one using the internet inside Saudi Arabia could view the blog. Now, however, Blogger.com has blocked his blog, so no one in the world can view it. Anyone trying [...]

Christian convert blogger arrested in Saudi Arabia

January 15th, 2009 | 2 Comments

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reports that Saudi authorities have arrested Hamoud Bin Saleh (at right) and blocked his blog following his online announcement that he has converted from Islam to Christianity. Based on information obtained by ANHRI, the Saudi authorities jailed the young blogger at the infamous Eleisha political prison in [...]

Saudi Arabia should have minimum age for marriage

January 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment

So says the National Society for Human Rights, an independent human rights organisation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The organisation is seeking to establish a minimum age of 15 years for girls to be married in the kingdom, the Saudi Gazette reported on Thursday. Dr Saleh al-Khathlan, deputy chairman of the NSHR, told the [...]

Saudis think women doctors are “easy”

December 22nd, 2008 | 1 Comment

Saudis have several cultural prejudices against women who enter the field of medicine, according to a Saudi blogger. The women will end up married to their careers Women will work in mixed environments (medical facilities are not segregated like the rest of the work world in KSA) The women will end up getting married late [...]

Pakistan “about to become a failed state”

December 16th, 2008 | 2 Comments

The financial crisis and attendant oil crash are wreaking havoc with the economies of oil states. Despite falling revenues, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad persists in subsidising energy costs for peasants and urban poor who form his support base. Pakistan is even worse shape, largely because it had no oil exports to start with. Its current account [...]

Saudi’s first all-girl rock band cannot perform in public

November 26th, 2008 | 1 Comment

It’s not easy being an all-girl rock band in Saudi Arabia. Not only are women oppressed but rock music is also forbidden. They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom. But the members of [...]

Bush at UN: Freedom of religion is a basic human right

November 14th, 2008 | 1 Comment

US President George W Bush spoke yesterday at the Saudi-sponsored UN gabfest on religion and peace. It was probably his last opportunity to address the United Nations, and he made the most of it. He risked the ire of America’s putative ally, Saudi Arabia, by emphasising the right to change one’s religion. While he praised [...]

Critics pan Saudi-led UN religion and peace confab

November 12th, 2008 | 1 Comment

Saudi Arabia is leading a UN conference on religion and peace. Once again, the UN allows itself to be used to lend legitimacy to a malicious cause. Seven years after 15 Saudis hijacked U.S. jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center, Saudi Arabia is leading a UN forum in New York this week [...]

Fatwa allows wives to hit husbands in self-defence

October 28th, 2008 | 1 Comment

Saudi Arabian officials have accepted a fatwa that originated in Turkey giving women permission to strike husbands in self-defence. Sheikh Mohsen al Obeikan, an adviser to the Saudi Ministry of Justice and a member of the Saudi Shura Council agreed with some Islamic scholars in Turkey and Egypt in this regard. “This [issue] is acknowledged [...]