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Saudi Arabia arrests ten liberal reformists on terror offences
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6331767.stm
The Saudi authorities are remaining tight-lipped about the identities of 10 men arrested on Friday on suspicion of funding insurgents outside the country. Nine Saudis and a foreign national, reported to be from Morocco, were held in raids in Jeddah and Medina.
They were arrested for collecting money for "suspicious parties".
But a defence lawyer says the men are reformists with no links to terrorism. Newspaper reports and relatives described them as professional people.
They include lawyers and academics known for their reformist activities, according to reports in the Arab media.
The 10 - who include liberals and moderate Islamists - have in the past signed petitions condemning violence and calling for political reform.
BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy says some Saudis suspect the charge of funding terrorism to be a pretext - and that the 10 have been arrested for their political beliefs.
A lawyer representing four of the men says they were recently warned by the interior minister, Prince Nayef, to stop holding meetings and signing petitions.
'Suspicious' collections
The government said the men were suspected of illegally collecting donations and passing them on to what are described as "suspicious elements" outside the country.
An interior ministry statement said the money was being used to lure "the sons of the nation to disturbed places", which correspondents say was probably a reference to neighbouring Iraq.
Seven of the Saudis and the foreigner were arrested while meeting in Jeddah on Friday night. The other two were held in separate raids in Jeddah and Medina.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been responsible for a highly visible campaign to seek out militants sympathetic to al-Qaeda among its citizens.
The Saudi authorities are remaining tight-lipped about the identities of 10 men arrested on Friday on suspicion of funding insurgents outside the country. Nine Saudis and a foreign national, reported to be from Morocco, were held in raids in Jeddah and Medina.
They were arrested for collecting money for "suspicious parties".
But a defence lawyer says the men are reformists with no links to terrorism. Newspaper reports and relatives described them as professional people.
They include lawyers and academics known for their reformist activities, according to reports in the Arab media.
The 10 - who include liberals and moderate Islamists - have in the past signed petitions condemning violence and calling for political reform.
BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy says some Saudis suspect the charge of funding terrorism to be a pretext - and that the 10 have been arrested for their political beliefs.
A lawyer representing four of the men says they were recently warned by the interior minister, Prince Nayef, to stop holding meetings and signing petitions.
'Suspicious' collections
The government said the men were suspected of illegally collecting donations and passing them on to what are described as "suspicious elements" outside the country.
An interior ministry statement said the money was being used to lure "the sons of the nation to disturbed places", which correspondents say was probably a reference to neighbouring Iraq.
Seven of the Saudis and the foreigner were arrested while meeting in Jeddah on Friday night. The other two were held in separate raids in Jeddah and Medina.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been responsible for a highly visible campaign to seek out militants sympathetic to al-Qaeda among its citizens.
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Comments
Agreed. But naturally, they're paying us a lot of money for planes, so we can just sweep such incidents under the carpet.
Let alone the UK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6266613.stm
(Saudi's expect 72 Eurofighters "soon")
If there is one state that puts paid to any claim of the US and UK to have an ethical foreign policy, this is it. Its incomprehensible how anyone can still make the Iraq arguments they do ("remove brutal regime, better off after intevention") considering our support and relationship with the Saudis.
Iran is a much more liberal country than Saudi Arabia. Anyone who believes this war on terror is a noble fight to spread freedom and democracy is clearly a sheeple.
Sheep+People=Sheeple. Heads in the sand, do what they're told, you catch my drift.
What's a conspiraloon?
In this context and especially in the context of how a vast majority of the west percieve affairs to be and how affairs should be carried out in the Middle East then "sheeple" is apt IMHO.
shhh, people aren't supposed to think about that! Saudi's are the good guys, Iran are the the bad guys, cowboys and indians damn it! I can't hear you la la la la la. USA USA USA!
A lot of people think the Iraq war has gone wrong and the US has made a lot of mistakes. Ask your average Joe Bloggs on the ground, "Who's a more oppressive regime, Iran or Saudi Arabia?" and I'll bet they'll say Iran.
I'm sure a lot are intelligent. I'm talking about your average Joe on the street. You really think they've even heard of this Saudi thing? All you read in the papers and hear in the news (even from good channels) is about Iran and it's nuclear intentions. Saudi Arabia never gets a mention.
This story was a top story on the world's most visited news website...
I know what you're saying, I just think that most people know exactly what the Saudis and the Chinese are like. What can we do about it though?
Are you sure? I found it as the second subsidiary story in the middle east section of the BBC news website.
Put it this way: changing the UK's relationship with Saudi Arabia is not on the agenda in the mainstream media. Iraq, Iran and Syria have all been top of the foreign policy agenda in the mainstream media at various points. Iraq has already been invaded and occupied and Iran and Syria may well be (or at least attacked).
I would doubt the majority of British voters would place Saudi Arabia in the top 5 of repressive states in the world (does such a survey exist, has anyone seen something like this?) which it undoubtedly is - in fact its probably number 1 or 2, depending on what criteria you use.
Edited to say: the top 5 most read stories on the BBC news website today are:
Briefcase 'that changed the world'
Deal ends Beatles' Apple battle
Men jailed for online rape plot
Promise to 'stamp out' bird flu
21/7 accused 'made frantic calls'
I just not sure you're right in your judgement. And by saying they wouldn't put it in the top 5 are you saying they wouldn't put it in the top 10, the top 20 the top 100?
The question that's important would seem to be how repressive people think Saudi is, not where they would place it next to China, Cuba, Canade or Chad...
???
Two teenagers hanged for being gay ...
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/Images/events/iran/iran_execution.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/2005/404/niran.htm&h=392&w=449&sz=96&hl=en&start=3&tbnid=aYndONRPRTAmzM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgay%2Bexecution%26svnum%3D100%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG
"On January 3, 2006, Nazanin was sentenced to death for murder by a criminal court, for killing one of three men who tried to rape her and her niece."
http://save.nazanin.googlepages.com/
etc etc
The words 'Iran' and 'liberal' ought not be used together ... at least the Saudis felt they could attempt a gay beauty contest ... http://www.gaymiddleeast.com/news/article78.html
I don't think I am wrong in this judgement. Like I said it'd be interesting to see a survey showing this, but I don't know if one exists.
I think the relative position people would place these countries in is extremely important because the "repressiveness" or "anti-democraticness" of countries is the criteria used to justify intervention now. E.g. Israel should be supported when it has developed nuclear weapons because it is "democratic," Iran should be intervened in when it allegedly tries to develop neuclear weapons because it is repressive and "anti-democratic." Or most obviously Iraq: ok, there were no WMDs, but are you saying that it would have been better to leave Saddam Hussein in power, he was repressive and anti-democratic." That argument becomes meaningless when there are direct equivalent examples, or worse examples. But many people still make this argument, suggesting that they don't realise that there are more repressive/anti-democratic states that we actively support.
It's still a backward country, just not as bad as Saudi Arabia. Women can't even show their face in public in Saudi Arabia.
Ah, but the women insist that this is how they like it though ... full modesty etc ... I think Saudi women are more pissed off that they are not allowed to drive, to be honest.
Do they? All of them?
Lots of them do, admittedly, but thats mainly because its way to dangerous to "insist" anything else, since any protests is immediately crushed. And many of them have been brainwashed by the state controlled media.
Iran is backward, so's Saudi, but its a bit of a pointless exercise to try and place them in an order of merit.
At the risk of bringing Godwin's law into play Stalin was an evil monster, but we ignored that between 1941 and 1945 because he was on our side...
I'm not terribly comfortable with that mentality to be honest (as discussed plenty of times in the past). To me it looks like 'we don't give a shit whether someone boils people alive for a laugh so long as we have a use for him. And when we no longer do, let's remove him by force and then pretend we were doing it for the good of the poor oppresed people of the country in question'.