COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Saudi Arabia, Terrorist State, The True Axis of Evil Against Women


Women's rights supporters condemn Saudi Arabia as activists ordered to jail

Supporters condemn length of sentences as bid by authorities to silence criticism

The Observer, Saturday 28 September 2013


Two prominent female rights activists who went to the aid of a woman they believed to be in distress are expected to go to jail in Saudi Arabia on Sunday after the failure of their appeal against a 10-month prison sentence and a two-year travel ban.
Wajeha al-Huwaider, a writer who has repeatedly defied Saudi laws by driving a car, and Fawzia al-Oyouni were arrested for taking a food parcel to the house of someone they thought was in an abusive relationship. In June they were found guilty on a sharia law charge of takhbib – incitement of a wife to defy the authority of her husband, thus undermining the marriage.
Campaigners say they are "heroes" who have been given heavy sentences to punish them for speaking out against Saudi restrictions on women's rights, which include limited access to education and child marriage as well as not being able to drive or even travel in a car without a male relative being present.
In 2007 a Saudi appeal court doubled a sentence of 90 lashes to be given to a teenager because she had been in a car with a male friend when they were abducted and gang-raped by seven men.
Suad Abu-Dayyeh, an activist for the group Equality Now , said the authorities had been trying to silence the two women for years and their sentence "is unfortunate and scandalous". It marked a dangerous escalation of how far Saudi authorities were willing to go.
"These women are extremely brave and active in fighting for women's rights in Saudi Arabia, and this is a way for the Saudi authorities to silence them," she said. "If they are sent to jail, it sends a very clear message to defenders of human rights that they should be silent and stop their activities – not just in Saudi Arabia, but across Arab countries. These women are innocent – they should be praised for trying to help a woman in need, not imprisoned. They now find themselves at the mercy of the system they have fought so tirelessly to change."
According to reports, this is also the first time in Saudi legal history that a travel ban has been imposed in a case involving domestic issues.
"This case and the system of lifelong male guardianship of women in Saudi Arabia shows that protecting a husband's dominant, even abusive, position in the family is far more important than his wife's wellbeing," said Suad Abu-Dayyeh.
The women themselves believe they may have been set up, that they were contacted by text message by a woman claiming to be the mother of Natalie Morin, a Canadian national married to a Saudi who has herself been campaigning for several years to be allowed to leave the country with her three young children – something she says the authorities will not allow her to do.
The text, in June 2011, said she had been abused by her husband, an unemployed former Saudi intelligence officer, who had then left for a wedding and left her and her children locked in their apartment in the eastern city of Dammam for a week and that they were running out of food and water. When the two women arrived in Morin's street they were immediately arrested.
"Actually when we went to there, the minute we arrived a police car arrived," said Wajeha al-Huwaider. "I'm sure the judge knows that it was a trap and they meant to catch us at that time in order to make a case against us."
At first they were charged with trying to aid Morin escape to the Canadian embassy in Riyadh, but the intervention of a local member of the Saudi royal family led to those charges being dropped, because, said Huwaider, even he was embarrassed at the obvious nature of the set-up.
Morin was also arrested and held for several hours. It was not until a year later that the two women were told they were to face the new charge of takhbib, a law that effectively puts all aid workers and activists helping Saudi women in need of protection from domestic violence, at risk.
Morin was not permitted to testify at their trial earlier this year that she had never met Huwaider and Oyouni. She has declared support for them on her blog writing: "I am sorry for what's happening to madam Wajeha al-Huwaider and her friend." She said the "two Saudi women find themselves in a serious legal problem with jail just for trying to help me … there is no evidence for the charges that are against her and her friend."
Huwaider and Oyouni's conviction has been condemned by numerous human rights organisations, including the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Equality Now and Pen International.

17 comments:

  1. The United States and the US media supports this disgusting theocracy because of big business and big oil. Let’s just drop the hypocritical bullshit that the brainless term, “US Interests” is anything more than statist corporatism at its cynical worse.

    Where is the American Left on this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Been asking that myself for years.

      NOW is AWOL.

      Nobody even brings it up..

      Get raped in Arabia, you're really screwed, as they say.

      Loaded dice.

      Delete
    2. Been asking that myself for years.

      NOW is AWOL.

      Nobody even brings it up..

      Get raped in Arabia, you're really screwed, as they say.

      Loaded dice.

      Delete
    3. Henry A. KissingerMon Sep 30, 12:46:00 AM EDT

      Saudi Arabia is Israel's ally, we have to stand with them both.
      Shoulder to Shoulder

      The Triumvirate Axis of Abraham

      The three great Abrahamic religions, allied in common cause.

      Delete
  2. While you're at it do a thread on the abuse of women in India.

    It is much worse than you might think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Who are you to be telling other people what to do?

      Why do you not do it yourself?
      Are you to lazy or just incapable?

      Delete
  3. While you're at it do a thread on the abuse of women in India.

    It is much worse than you might think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Who are you to be telling other people what to do?

      Why do you not do it yourself?
      Are you to lazy or just incapable?

      Delete
  4. Heck with Neville Chamberlain, let's listen to JFKennedy ....

    Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.
    John F. Kennedy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whereupon, he promptly ordered the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of Vietnam on Nov 2, 1963, and was, in turn, assassinated on Nov 22, 1963.

      Delete
    2. Or, did he?

      Many say that, although Kennedy was involved in the planning of the "coup," he was taken aback by the assassination.

      Perhaps, the Diem assassination further poisoned the relationship between the CIA, and Kennedy - a relationship that was already at about DefCon 4.9.

      Delete
  5. I dont understand what you posted.. but through comments i get a point that it is worse.. is it? I wanna explanation..
    get more instagram followers

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jeez Shitfull is back.

    He had been deep studying Hegelisan dialectic.

    I though he had gone on to Husserl.

    Who said "I can't find it".

    Then said "I found it."

    SHITFULL will never find it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey, just a darn moment here. SHITFULL once assured us that the Islamic world was individualistic, just like us in the west. But in Saudi the women can't even choose what dress to wear, nor can they drive cars, in fact that can't talk to an unrelated man without some minder being present.

    This doesn't sound like individualism and freedom to me. But SHITFULL said the Islamic world was individualistic just like us.

    I think SHITFULL is full of shit, as usual.

    ReplyDelete
  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gosh, two whole comments before Israel is named.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ...disgusting...infuriating...Little do they know that fate will strike them down, making them and their religion synonyms for villainy.

    ReplyDelete