If you’re an American, one thing you can be thankful for today is that you’re not a Saudi. It galls me continuously to realize that this barbaric land, where apostasy, homosexuality, and blasphemy are crimes punishable by death—and death by beheading—is our ally. Obama, of course, refuses to raise his voice against the brutality of this medieval theocracy, for, after all, they’ve got OIL, and claim to be on our side.
So spare a thought today for Ashraf Fayadh, a 35-year-old Palestinian poet (born in Saudi Arabia) who was sentenced to death for these horrific crimes (from Human Rights Watch):
The religious police held him for a day, then released him, but authorities re-arrested him on January 1, 2014. Prosecutors charged him with a host of blasphemy-related charges, including: blaspheming “the divine self” and the Prophet Muhammad; spreading atheism and promoting it among the youth in public places; mocking the verses of God and the prophets; refuting the Quran; denying the day of resurrection; objecting to fate and divine decree; and having an illicit relationship with women and storing their pictures in his phone.
What kind of country kills people for this? A backwards one, one not touched at all by the values of the Enlightenment.
Fayadh denied the charges, and was sentenced to 800 lashes and four years in prison, but the prosecutor appealed. And, although Fayadh repented of some of the accusations, and denied most of the others, another judge said that repentance wasn’t enough and sentenced Fayadh to death. An appeal is pending.
Saudi Arabia has executed 2015 people this year, and the year isn’t over yet. And it doesn’t matter, of course, that Fayadh is formally a Palestinian—in fact, that may be one reason he’s being persecuted. If you blaspheme in Saudi Arabia, you’re subject to its laws.
And, in further proof that the world is becoming complete fodder for The Onion, Newsweek reports that the Saudi government is suing a Twi**er used who called Fayadh’s sentence “ISIS-like”. It’s not yet clear what “suing” means: it may mean a jail sentence, a fine, or both. And here’s how far freedom of speech goes in that nation:
“Questioning the fairness of the courts is to question the justice of the Kingdom and its judicial system based on Islamic law, which guarantees rights and ensures human dignity”, [the newspaper] Al-Riyadh quoted the justice ministry source as saying. The ministry would not hesitate to put on trial “any media that slandered the religious judiciary of the Kingdom,” it said.
You can’t have pictures of women on your cellphone, you can’t leave Islam, you can’t slander the prophet or the Qur’an, you cant “object to fate and divine decree,” and now you can’t even compare the government to ISIS, which is absolutely a fair comparison. Orwell would have a field day were he still alive.
Obama’s busy pardoning turkeys, but he can’t spare a word to speak up against the repeated violations of human rights by one of our “allies.”
h/t: Grania
Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-isis-that-has-made-it.html?_r=1
Very good article there. I especially liked the phrase regarding Saudi Arabia Religious-Industrial complex. Maybe that is the antidote to our military-industrial complex.
For us it will be interesting to see which one brings us down first.
I’ve thought for a while that maybe the reason Saudi opposes DAESH is because they think they should be the leader of the worldwide caliphate.
That was, actually, the original history. Apparently, in the 1920s, Wahhabists that helped get the current royal family in power were subsequently lined up and machine-gunned by the king, because of their ambitions to establish their caliphate across the entire middle east. Then the House of Saud cut a deal with FDR re: having the US protect them and their oil markets under one condition… that we wouldn’t ever meddle with their religion. And here we are. Explains all the official silence on our part, incl. Obama’s.
Interesting. Thanks Stephen. 🙂
‘counterpart’, not ‘antidote’
Unfortunately
cr
Worse, “ally”, not either of the above.
Canada, I am ashamed to say, supplies Saudi arms. 🙁
sub
mit
Lot’s to be thankful for today. But this isn’t one of them.
A minor correction – according to this morning’s paper, reporting the same story, Saudi Arabia has executed 152 people so far this year.
To give the number a further context we should add the executions in Saudi Arabia are now at a 20-year high!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/09/executions-saudi-arabia-20-year-high-amnesty-international
I think the ‘2015 people’ was a misprint for the year?
cr
I wonder what Scott Atran’s explanation of this is.
He would say if we went along with him on one of his trips, THEN we would understand.
Well that’s convenient.
I’m sure there are just tons of secular cultural anthropologists in Saudi Arabia and ISIS at the moment too, all of whom are independently converging on Atran’s thesis. I mean that’s the bare minimum one would expect if Atran’s prepared to ignore what Saudis and ISIS soldiers actually say about their religious motivations.
That exactly what Atran would say. He’d charge a fee for serving as guide as well.
There’s no question in my mind that Saudi Arabia law is inhumane, that it treats normal human behavior as sin worthy of death. It’s not the only country to do so, but it is a prominent one with political clout on the world stage.
But that’s part of the point, I think. Saudi Arabia’s influence and resources garner it some protection–other countries, including the US, would prefer to keep peace with it rather than trigger the possibility of conflict.
On the scale of the execution of a living being, this absolutely sucks. A human being is sentenced to die because he dares to disagree with backward social and political beliefs of the government. His voice will likely be silenced forever, potential untapped.
But on the scale of what conflict might look like between Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world, one life is just that, one life. Any sanctions against the country will probably cause much more grief to its citizens. The question is do we watch 150+ people die a year and say nothing or say something and risk the lives of thousands?
People far wiser than me can perhaps speak more to the nature of what might or might not happen. I bow to your wisdom.
Refusing to trade with this ghastly regime is not enforcing “sanctions”. It’s simple ethical consistency, and every country like this that the west invites to the table is a blot against our copybook in that respect.
I don’t think leading by example is outmoded, or naive: that would be the right-wing argument where realpolitik and economic ‘necessity'(and it’s never a ‘necessity’) trumps(or Trumps) everything.
Nor do I think(re. your point) that making some clear, simple changes to our relationship with Saudi Arabia necessarily risks thousands of lives. As far as I can see it risks very little besides money.
“Any sanctions against the country will probably cause much more grief to its citizens.”
I wouldn’t discard this political instrument out of hand, though, I certainly understand why the Western allies of Saudi Arabia have so far been loath to use it, as it would inevitably affect their own economies.
Yeah, no one in power is weighing the lives of confronting Saudi Arabia, they are weighing the money.
I’ve sometimes wondered if SA remains an ally simply because that’s better than having them as an enemy. And given Putin’s egomania I’d hate to see them as a Russian ally. And strategically we need as many allies in the middle east as we can get.
Nonetheless I find the situation deplorable.
There’s a little false dichotomy in the above, I think. In Canada’s case, I would prefer that we for example start by refusing to sell them weapons. (Used, for example, to support campaigns in Yemen.)
In an email a few years back I wrote,
I think that still sums it up nicely. And, Saudi Arabia is not a formal US ally. It belongs to none of the mutual self-defense pacts to which the US does, nor is it designated an MNNA (Major Non-NATO Ally— a formal term in American law). Some (not all) of our MNNA’s are a bit sketchy, but Saudi isn’t even one of them.
Thank you for the introduction to MNNAs and the link. Interesting stuff. (And I’m embarrassed not to have known about them.)
Presumably they are only “suing” this twitterer because he doesn’t live in Saudi Arabia, and so the only plausible crime they can argue for in a civilised court is libel.
If this twittererer had been a Saudi citizen, he or she would be for the chop as well.
Yes, the Saudis are scum–the royal family makes an alliance with the Wahbis’ to fund them in return for not opposing the House Of Saud so they can spread their radical version of Islam. Then, when Saddam comes a’callin with his army, they break out in a chorus of “Onward Christian Soldiers” for us to save their miserable asses. Now the GOP wants to end the ban on export of domestic crude oil instead of keeping it in the ground for our future for the day the Saudis go dry and have no way to pay for the imported food they depend on–we can always grow more food but they can’t grow more oil and they will go back to living in tents in the desert
In the name of expediency, we have gotten into bed with regimes even more despicable then the Saudi regime. Anybody remember WW2 when we got into bed with ole Joe Dzhugashvili, the dictator of the former Soviet Union, mass murderer of millions of Soviet citizens.
Winston Churchill, no fan of Communism on explaining why he welcomed the addition of the former Soviet Union to the war effort:
If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
The number one reason the West maintains an alliance with Saudi imo is that it’s an effective counter against Iran. I think that now the Iran deal has been signed, as long as Iran considers it’s in their best interests to maintain a good relationship with the West we will start to see more push back against Saudi politically.
We’ve already started seeing small things happen such as the EU parliament giving that award to Raif Badawi. I suspect more will follow.
History will judge Obama’s foreign policy a lot more kindly than it’s being judged at the moment I think. While he has the capacity to see long term consequences, most of his critics either don’t, or won’t admit to it for political expediency.
I’d question whether Iran (or Iraq for that matter) was ever such a menace as Saudi Arabia. Notwithstanding Iran/Iraq’s verbal sabre-rattling.
Considering where the funding for Al Quaeda and the like came from…
cr
I’d go along with you there. I think the thing that made Iran a threat in the first place was the interference of the West.
This, however it may be true now, does not explain why the alliance (however informal and off-book) existed in the first place. There the *control* of petroleum I think makes best sense. (Not the access and use of; there’s a subtle difference.) This is related to the bit above about keeping the Russians away; I think it is more likely these days a “keep China away” (and to a lesser extent, Europe and Japan).
Saudi basically decides the worldwide oil price, which is another reason for keeping them on-side. Their production costs are the lowest in the world, so they can handle a lower price than anyone else while still making a profit, which gives them enormous power.
They’re keeping it fairly low at the moment, which is suffocating Russia (good!) but is making it difficult for Europe etc to afford to develop greener alternatives and for the US etc to develop resources like shale oil and thus obtain energy independence.
“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
Circumstances alter cases. The enemy then was Hitler, and without the Soviet Union entering the war, the Allies would very likely not have won. Hence Churchill’s wry remark. Allying with the Soviet Union was not optional, it was dictated by events.
The current position with Saudi Arabia is not remotely similar.
cr
“If you’re an American …”
I’m not an American, and I’m still bloody thankful that I’m not in Saudi Arabia.
In fact I should think everybody in the world, including Iraqis, Syrians, and quite possibly North Koreans, should be thankful that they’re not in Saudi Arabia.
cr
“It’s not yet clear what “suing” means: it may mean a jail sentence, a fine, or both.”
Well that would imply that he’s in Saudi Arabia, in which case ‘prosecuting’ would be more accurate.
If the Twitterer lives elsewhere, the normal penalty for libel is damages, a civil remedy.
But I’m not sure in what jurisdiction a country or its institutions can sue for libel. I think even the notoriously litigant-friendly English libel laws would draw the line at that. Though in the US, corporations are now people.
Ummmm
cr