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Here is a selection of recent articles on the uprising for human rights and democracy in Saudi Arabia. Pakistanis will keep ignoring it because of their Shia phobia and Wahhabi philia. The West (US) will keep ignoring it because of their ‘Oil over Democracy’ strategy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12708487

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-10/saudi-arabian-security-forces-break-up-day-of-rage-protest-in-al-qatif.html

http://blogs.wsj.com/dispatch/2011/03/10/videos-of-the-protests-in-saudi-arabia/?mod=google_news_blog

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/briefs/articles/90039394?Dow%20dives%20as%20Saudi%20Arabia%20demo%20dispersal%20rattles%20Wall%20Street

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/10/AR2011031002376.html

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/304471

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/world/2011/03/110310_saudi_situation_fz.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/world/2011/03/110310_saudi_unrest_fz.shtml

Saudi prince says loyal Saudi foil “evil” protests
Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:21am GMT

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – A senior Saudi prince said in comments published on Sunday that loyal Saudis had foiled plans by “evil people” to stage protests.

Web activists had slated March 11 as the first day for mass protests around the country in favour of democratic government and a constitutional rather than absolute monarchy.

But a religious ruling banning demonstrations in the world’s biggest oil exporter, and a heavy police crackdown in key cities, appeared to intimidate most who are interested in demanding more political rights.

“I congratulate King Abdullah and his crown prince Sultan for having these kind and loyal subjects,” Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, the king’s half-brother, said in remarks published on the official news agency overnight.

“Some evil people wanted to spread chaos in the kingdom yesterday and called for demonstrations that have dishonourable goals,” said the veteran security chief, whose ministry warned last week that protests were un-Islamic and illegal.

Inspired by mass protests in Tunisia and Egypt which resulted in the toppling of long-standing leaders Zine al Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, activists have signed petitions in favour of a constitutional monarchy.

Governance in the U.S. ally is dominated by the Saudi royal family. Senior princes occupy key government posts, political parties and protests are banned, and the country has an advisory parliamentary body whose members are appointed by the king.

The class of Sunni Muslim religious scholars, who have wide powers in society, uphold absolute obedience to the ruler.

The Eastern Province, where most Saudi oil fields are located, was the only region that saw protests on Friday — the latest in a series of demonstrations there in recent weeks.

They are demanding the release of prisoners held for years without trial. Shi’ite community leaders met King Abdullah and the governor of the Eastern Province last week to seek the release of some 26 people detained in protests.

Shi’ites also complain of discrimination in a country that rules by Sunni sharia law. The government denies this.

Three protesters were injured as police fired shots in the air during a Shi’ite protest on March 10.

The Shi’ite minority in Saudi Arabia is thought to represent 10-15 percent of the country’s 27 million people.

Weeks of protests by majority Shi’ites in neighbouring Bahrain have inspired their Saudi co-religionists.

(Reporting by Asma Alsharif, editing by Myra MacDonald)

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE72C11V20110313?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Saudi Arabia protests escalate, Police open fire
Posted by Admin at 11 March, at 02 : 40 AM Print

CAIRO — Saudi police opened fire Thursday to disperse a protest in the mainly Shiite, oil-producing east, leaving at least three people injured, as the government struggled to prevent a wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world from reaching the kingdom.

Word of the protest helped drive oil prices back up on international markets.

The rare violence raised concern about a crackdown ahead of planned protests after Friday prayers in different cities throughout the oil-rich kingdom. Violence there could reverberate through the world’s markets because of the importance of Saudi oil exports.

Discord is common between authorities and the country’s Shiites, who make up 10 percent of the kingdom’s 23 million citizens. They have long complained of discrimination, saying they are barred from key positions in the military and government and are not given an equal share of the country’s wealth.

Eyeing rising discontent across the Middle East and North Africa, Saudi authorities are increasingly determined to prevent the unrest from spreading to other cities.

Saudi security forces have deployed around the capital of Riyadh on the eve of planned protests calling for democratic reforms.

Witnesses reported Thursday seeing riot police and special forces with batons and tear gas canisters, particularly around shopping malls and main roads.

The pro-Western monarchy is concerned protests could open footholds for Shiite powerhouse Iran and has accused foreigners of stoking the protests, which are officially forbidden.

Despite the ban and a warning that security forces will act against them, protesters demanding the release of political prisoners took to the streets for a second day in the eastern city of Qatif.

Several hundred protesters, some wearing masks to avoid being identified, marched after dark asking for “Freedom for prisoners.”

http://tihik.com/saudi-arabia-protests-escalate-police-open-fire.html

Speaking out
Written on March 10, 2011 by Editor – BBC World News

10 March 2011
Last updated at 17:02 ET

By Paul Wood
BBC News, Qatif, Saudi Arabia

Protests are extremely rare in Saudi Arabia, but activists in Qatif recently took to the streets

“Don’t talk to the foreigners,” said the voice. We were interviewing a leading Shia dissident in his home when he was interrupted by the call.

It was a state security man who had tailed us to the house and was now parked outside.

The dissident, Dr Tawfik Alsaif, laughed and put down the phone. “They don’t realise how things have changed yet,” he said.

We were in the eastern town of Qatif in the heartland of Saudi Arabia’s minority Shias and the scene of small anti-government marches last week.

The demonstrations were mainly by families demanding that their relatives be released from prison.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

Saudi Arabia is not like other countries where people have nothing to lose – here, they will be cautious”
End Quote
Fouad al-Farhan
Saudi blogger

On Friday, activists are trying to organise a Day of Rage in cities across the kingdom.

Common cause
But calls for political reform are now coming from different sections of Saudi society – Shia and Sunni, conservative and liberal. It is this that alarms the authorities.

Dr Alsaif, a Shia intellectual, has made common cause with other campaigners.

He had signed two of the three petitions circulating on the internet calling for more democracy in the kingdom.
There was a time when talking to the BBC would have got him arrested, and perhaps it yet will.

But, he told me, after Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya, there was a new paradigm in the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia could not be immune.

“Every state in the Middle East is nervous. And they should be nervous,” he said.

He stressed that he wanted gradual change, not a revolution.

“I don’t believe that liberal democracy will be put in place tomorrow but we have to start somewhere. Equality, the rule of law – the country is ready for this. We have to start the process.”

Demonstrators initially called for the release of political prisoners but their demands have broadened
After that meeting, the authorities asked us politely, but firmly, to leave eastern Saudi Arabia.
Before we were put on the next plane back to the capital, our government minders found us some loyalists to speak to.

They worried that democracy would cause strife in a tribal society.

“Stability and security are very important here on the peninsula,” said Adeeb al-Khunaizi, an oil executive from a family of Qatif notables.

Democracy risked “60 years of bloodshed”, he said – a return to the era of tribal conflict.
Dynasty state
Salman al-Jishi, a senior businessman, said that people loved the king and democracy was not needed in a country where anyone could take up their grievances directly with their rulers.

“The doors are open here,” he said. “You can pick up the phone and call a prince and he is willing to hear you and listen to your problems. We have a different system. I don’t think that even in your country you can meet any minister [you want].”

This is SAUDI Arabia – a country named after one family, the al-Saud dynasty.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

Our people are very well trained in dealing with demonstrations”
End Quote
Maj Gen Mansour al-Turki
Interior ministry spokesman

There is no serious challenge yet to King Abdullah’s rule. Still, on his return from medical treatment abroad, he announced £23bn ($37bn) in pay rises, subsidies and gifts for his people.
That was the carrot. The interior ministry has produced the stick, issuing a statement to remind Saudis that public demonstrations in the kingdom are illegal, warning that “all measures” would be taken to deal with “disorder”.
The ministry’s spokesman, Maj Gen Mansour al-Turki, told me that the security forces would move very quickly to close down any demonstrations before they could escalate.
“There is no order to shoot. There is no order to use any kind of excessive force,” he said.
“Our people are very well trained in dealing with demonstrations. They are used to this from the Haj [the annual pilgrimage to Mecca which attracts hundreds of thousands of people].”
Fouad al-Farhan, a blogger who has served time in prison, told me: “Demonstrations are not part of the culture. The majority of Saudis never saw a protest. That is a barrier. Will people go out? That is a big question.”
That question was being debated at a dinner in Riyadh for another internet activist who had only just got out of jail. His crime, he told me, was that he had discussed the royal succession on his Facebook page.
Cautious
We were joined by Mohammed Qatani, of the independent Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association.
He said there were 30,000 political prisoners in the kingdom, some of whom had been held for years without trial. The authorities say that people are jailed for security reasons.
“People are glued to their TVs, watching and learning,” he said. “I think the momentum is building.”
The authorities had to give some signals about reform now. “Things could escalate quite quickly and then by the time you make concessions, it is going to be too late.”
Men sat on the floor, eating, Bedouin-style, with their hands from vast trays of lamb and rice.
Even here, in a gathering of human rights activists, most said they would probably not go out onto the streets tomorrow.
Political debate in Saudi Arabia is still something carried out in private, in people’s homes, or anonymously, on the internet. You cannot hold rallies and street protest is illegal, as are political parties.
Given all that, any kind of gathering on Friday – however small – would send tremors through the government.
Neither the authorities nor the activists know exactly what to expect – but probably not a repeat of what has happened in Egypt, Tunisia or Libya.

Or, as blogger Fouad al-Farhan told me: “Saudi Arabia is not like other countries – where people have nothing to lose. Here, they will be cautious. So many Saudis still have something they don’t want to lose.”

Saudi says protests don’t fit Islamic state
Wed Mar 9, 2011 7:18pm GMT Print | Single Page [-] Text [+]
* Argument remains same – protests are not Islamic

* Planned Friday, March 11 protests seen as first key test

* Reforms not keeping up with Internet-savvy youth

(Updates number of Facebook call supporters, paragraph 4)

By Andrew Hammond

DUBAI, March 9 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s ruling family has mobilised the power of its conservative religious establishment to prevent a wave of uprisings against Arab autocrats from roaring into its kingdom, home to more than a fifth of the world’s known oil reserves.

Whether these traditional tactics will work with a young population that grew up in the information revolution age, with the ability to use the internet to organise and spread awareness of ideas of universal rights to political participation, is still to be tested.

As revolts that toppled Saudi allies in Egypt and Tunisia encourage democracy activists to challenge rulers around the region, Saudi authorities have tried every means possible to warn people not to dare try the same.

The day all eyes are fixed on is Friday. More than 32,000 people have backed a call on Facebook to hold two demonstrations this month, the first on March 11 and then March 20.

The theme running through comments from princes, clerics and newspaper editorialists is that protests in the key U.S.-allied state are not Islamic, the subject of a fatwa issued by the Council of Senior Clerics this week.

Just two days before Friday, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, the king’s nephew, warned that protests were not allowed and that change could only happen through “the principle of dialogue”.

They used rhetoric that Saudis are long used to, based on the idea that Saudi Arabia is unique as a country that replicates the early Islamic state — and Islamic Utopia where God’s word is law and allegiance to the ruler is non-negotiable.

They cited Koranic verses and their perception of the early Muslim state established by Prophet Mohammad to argue that reform should come via advice and not street protests, and even argue that signing petitions “violates what God ordered”.

But Fouad Ibrahim, who has written studies on Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi school of Islam, said the word of the senior scholars had far less authority now that it did in the past.

“‘We live in an Islamic state, we are not like Egypt and Tunisia, we implement sharia law, there is not enough reason for people to revolt against the Islamic state’ — these claims used to be marketed but many people don’t believe this any more,” said Ibrahim, who is based in London.

SAUDIS QUESTION CLERICS

Wahhabism — the Saudi interpretation of the Hanbali school of Sunni Islamic law — stands out for its insistence that the ruler should be obeyed at all costs. Its clerics also frown on political parties, which are banned in the country.

But following the 1990-1 Gulf crisis — when the government clerics shocked many by authorising U.S. troops on Saudi soil — many Wahhabi scholars broke away.

More politically active, they presented petitions to the royal family that argued the state had veered away from Islamic principles in domestic and foreign policies. They supported the idea of parliamentary elections.

Many of those scholars, who were imprisoned for their insolence, have more credibility than the government-backed clerics among Saudis today.

One of them, Salman al-Odah, who has a programme each week on pan-Arab channel MBC1, put his signature to a reform petition last month and has made pro-reform comments on social media site Twitter this week. “The youth must be given some freedom to criticise,” he said on Wednesday.

Saudi clerics have been split over support for uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Their supporters on Islamist websites fear protests will play into Iranian hands by emboldening Shi’ites, who have already started protesting over the past two weeks in the Eastern Province where most Saudi oilfields lie.

The clerics, given wide powers in society through a historic pact with the Saudi family, also fear protests will benefit liberals who want to rein in the religious establishment.

Saudi Arabia is home to Islam’s two holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, and officials often argue this gives the kingdom a special status in Islam akin go the Vatican for Catholics.

INTERNET FREEDOMS

Saudis can pick and choose between the opinions of clerics inside and outside the country, or ignore them altogether.

Abdelkarim al-Khidr, an Islamic jurisprudence professor at Qassim University, has published a study circulating among activists that justifies protests from a Wahhabi standpoint.

“Demonstrations are not violating Islam. Honest people should demonstrate because it’s time for it and petitions didn’t bring us progress,” he told Reuters in Riyadh this week.

Blogger Eman Al-Nafjan said although many Saudi youth were conservative in outlook, that did not mean they followed blindly the words of the official religious establishment.

But the clerics’ forbidding of signing petitions had made them look out of date, she said. “The fatwa works against the scholars, they lost a lot of people by issuing it. We already know that the religious scholars are easily bought and they say what they are told to say,” Nafjan said.

The interconnected nature of the new generation of Saudis was putting Saudi claims of cultural particularism to their biggest test yet, Ibrahim said.

Deposed rulers Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia as well as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who is battling rebels for his survival, all tried to argue that some unique facet of their country would prevent change.

“They all say this. Mubarak said that when Ben Ali was removed. Gaddafi has said Libya is different. (Saudi Interior Minister) Prince Nayef told newspaper editors ‘we are different because we implement sharia’,” Ibrahim said. (Additional reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Samia

http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE7282JY20110309?sp=true

سعودی عرب میں یوم الغضب

ہم ایک سرکردہ شیعہ رہنما سے ان کے گھر پر انٹرویو کر رہے تھے کہ ایک آواز آئی ’غیر ملکیوں سے بات مت کرو۔‘

ٹیلی فون کی گھنٹی ان کی بات میں مخل ہوئی۔ یہ کوئی سرکاری ایجنسی کا آدمی تھا جو ہمارا پیچھا کرتے ہوئے ان کے گھر تک آن پہنچا تھا اور گھر کے باہر ہی کھڑا تھا۔

ڈاکٹر توفیق السیف ہنسے اور انھوں نے فون رکھ دیا۔ انھوں نے کہا کہ انھیں اندازہ نہیں کہ اب چیزیں کتنی بدل گئی ہیں۔

ہم سعودی عرب کے مشرقی شہر قطیف میں تھے جو سعودی عرب میں شیعہ آبادی کا علاقہ ہے اور جہاں گزشتہ ہفتے حکومت مخالف جلوس بھی نکالے گئے تھے۔

ان مظاہرین میں زیادہ تر وہ لوگ شریک ہوئے جن کے رشتہ دار قید میں ہیں اور وہ ان کی رہائی کا مطالبہ کر رہے تھے۔

کچھ لوگ ملک کے مختلف شہروں میں اس جمعہ کو ’یوم الغضب‘ کے طور پر منانے کی کوششیں کر رہے ہیں۔

سیاسی اصلاحات کا مطالبہ ابھی کئی حلقوں کی طرف سے کیا جا رہا ہے جن میں شیعہ، سنی، قدامت پسند اور معتدل خیالات کے سب ہی لوگ شامل ہیں۔ اسی وجہ سے حکام کو خطرہ ہے۔

ڈاکٹر السیف نے جو ایک شیعہ دانشور ہیں دوسرے سرگرم لوگوں کے ساتھ ایک مشترکہ مقصد بنا لیا ہے۔

انھوں نے انٹر نیٹ پر موجود تین میں سے دو یاداشتوں پر دستخط کر رکھے ہیں جن میں سلطنت میں زیادہ جمہوریت کا مطالبہ کیا گیا ہے۔

ایک وقت ایسا تھا کہ بی بی سی سے بات کرنے کے جرم میں انھیں گرفتار کر لیا جاتا اور ایسا اب بھی ہو سکتا ہے۔

انھوں نے مجھ سے کہا کہ تیونس، مصر، بحرین اور لیبیا کے بعد مشرقی وسطی میں حالات بدل گئے ہیں اور سعودی عرب ان حالات سے الگ نہیں ہے۔

انھوں نے کہا کہ مشرق وسطیٰ میں ہر ریاست پریشانی کا شکار ہے اور انھیں پریشان ہونا بھی چاہیے۔

انھوں نے کہا کہ وہ تبدریج تبدیلی چاہتے ہیں نہ کہ انقلاب۔

’میں نہیں سمجھتا کہ لبرل ڈیموکریسی کو کل ہی لایا جا سکتا ہے لیکن ہمیں کہیں سے تو شروع کرنا ہوگا۔‘

برابری، قانون کی عملداری، ملک اس کے لیے تیار ہے اور ہمیں اس عمل کو شروع کرنا چاہیے۔‘

مظاہرین ابتداء میں سیاسی قیدیوں کی رہائی کا مطالبہ کر رہے تھے لیکن اب ان کے مطالبات بڑھ گئے ہیں۔

اس ملاقات کے بعد حکام نے بڑے احترام مگر سخت الفاظ میں ہمیں ملک کے مشرقی حصے سے نکل جانے کو کہا۔

لیکن اس سے پہلے کے ہمیں دارالحکومت واپس بھیجنے کے لیے جہاز پر سوار کرایا جاتا، سرکاری اہلکاروں نے چند حکومت کے حامیوں سے ہماری بات کرانے کا انتظام کر دیا۔

وہ اس بات سے پریشان تھے کہ ایک قبائلی سماج میں ڈیموکریسی کس طرح کام کر سکتی ہے۔

قطیب شہر کے ایک اعلی گھرانے سے تعلق رکھنے والے عدیب الخنوزی نے کہا کہ استحکام اور سکیورٹی اس خطے کے لیے بہت اہم ہیں۔

ایک سرکردہ تاجر سلمان الجسی نے کہا کہ لوگوں کو بادشاہ سے پیار ہے اور ایک ایسے ملک میں جہاں لوگ اپنی درخواستیں براہ راست حکمرانوں تک لے جا سکتے ہیں وہاں ڈیموکریسی کی ضرورت نہیں ہے۔

انھوں نے کہا کہ یہاں دروازے کھلے ہیں۔ یہاں پر آپ فون اٹھائیں اور براہ راست کسی شہزادے سے بات کریں وہ آپ کے مسائل سنے گا۔ ہمارا نظام مختلف ہے۔ میرے خیال میں آپ اپنے ملک میں بھی جس وقت چاہیں وزیر سے نہیں مل سکتے۔

یہ سعودی عرب ہے جس کا نام ایک خاندان السعود کے نام پر رکھا گیا ہے۔

بادشاہ عبداللہ کے اقتدار کے لیے ابھی مسئلہ نہیں ہے۔ حال ہی میں صحت یابی کے بعد وطن واپس لوٹنے پر انھوں نے تیئس ارب ڈالر کی رقم تنخواہوں میں اضافے، امدادی رقوم اور تحائف کے لیے مختص کرنے کا اعلان کیا تھا۔

یہ گاجر تھی۔ وزارت داخلہ نے ڈنڈا دکھایا اور ایک بیان میں لوگوں کو یاد دہانی کروائی کہ ریاست میں کسی بھی قسم کا مظاہرہ کرنا غیر قانونی ہے اور خبردار کیا کہ کسی بھی ممکنہ بدامنی سے نمٹنے کے لیے ہر ممکن قدم لیا جائے گا۔

وزارتِ داخلہ کے ترجمان میجر جنرل الترکی نے مجھ سے کہا کہ سکیورٹی فورسز کسی بھی مظاہرہ کو پھیلنے سے پہلے کچلنے کے لیے بہت تیزی سے کارروائی کریں گی۔

انھوں نے کہا کہ گولی چلانے کا کوئی حکم نہیں۔ اور قوت کے استعمال کا بھی کوئی حکم نہیں۔ انھوں نے کہا کہ ان کے اہلکار مظاہرین سے نمٹنے کے لیے تربیت یافتہ ہیں۔ وہ حج کے دوران اس طرح کے واقعات کا سامنا کرتے رہتے ہیں۔

بلاگ لکھنے والے ایک شحص فواہد الفرحان نے جو قید میں بھی رہ چکے ہیں مجھ سے کہا کہ مظاہرے اس معاشرے کی روایت نہیں ہے۔ سعودی عرب کی اکثریت نے کبھی مظاہرے نہیں دیکھے۔ یہ ایک رکاوٹ ہے کیا لوگ باہر نکلیں گے یہ ایک بڑا سوال ہے۔

یہ سوال ریاض میں کھانے کی میز پر ایک اور بلاگ لکھنے والے شخص کے ساتھ زیر بحث آیا۔ انھوں نے بتایا کہ وہ بھی قید بھگت چکے ہیں اور ان کا جرم یہ تھا کہ انھوں نے فیس بک پر موروثی اقتدار پر بحث کی تھی۔

سعودی عرب میں شہری اور سیاسی آزادیوں کے حقوق کی تنظیم کے کارکن محمد قطینی بھی اس بحث میں شامل ہو گئے۔

انھوں نے کہا کہ سلطنت میں تیس ہزار کے قریب سیاسی قیدی ہیں اور ان میں کچھ کو برسوں بغیر مقدمہ چلائے قید و بند کی صعوبتیں برداشت کرنا پڑ رہی ہیں۔ حکام کہتے ہیں کہ انھیں سکیورٹی کی وجوہات کی بنا پر قید میں رکھا گیا ہے۔

لوگ ٹی وی سیٹس سے چپکے ہوئے ہیں اور حالات دیکھے رہے ہیں اور اس طرح ایک تحریک پیدا ہو رہی ہے۔

حکام کو اب اصلاحات کے کچھ اشارے دینے ہوں گے۔ حالات تیزی سے بدل سکتے ہیں اور جب تک آپ کچھ مطالبات تسلیم کرنے پر تیار ہوتے ہیں بہت دیر ہو چکی ہوتی ہے۔

لوگ زمین پر بیٹھ کر بدوؤں کی طرح ایک بڑے سے طباق میں سے ہاتھوں سے چاول اور دمبے کا گوشت کھا رہے تھے۔

اس مجلس میں بھی جہاں بہت سے انسانی حقوق کے کارکن جمع تھے کچھ لوگ کہہ رہے تھے کہ وہ کل کے مظاہرے میں شرکت کے لیے نہیں نکلیں گے۔

سعودی عرب میں سیاسی بحث اب بھی لوگ گھروں اور نجی محفلوں میں کرتے ہیں یا پھر وہ نام ظاہر کیے بغیر انٹر نیٹ پر۔ آپ جلوس نہیں نکال سکتے اور سیاسی پارٹیوں کی طرح سڑکوں پر مظاہرے کرنے پر بھی پابندی ہے۔

اس صورت حال میں جمعہ کو چھوٹا سا مظاہرہ بھی حکومت کی پریشانی کے لیے کافی ہو گا۔

حکام اور مظاہرے کے منتظمین دونوں کو یہ یقین نہیں ہے کہ کیا ہو گا لیکن یہ ضرور ہے کہ مصر، تیونس اور لیبیا جیسے واقعات رونما نہیں ہوں گے۔

.بلاگ لکھنے وال فواد الفرحان نے مجھ سے کہا کہ سعودی عرب دوسرے ملکوں کی طرح نہیں ہے جہاں لوگوں کے پاس کھونے کے لیے کچھ نہیں ہے اس لیے یہاں لوگ محتاط ہیں۔ بہت سے سعودی باشندوں کے پاس کچھ ہے جسے وہ کھونا نہیں چاہتے۔

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/world/2011/03/110310_saudi_situation_fz.shtml

Signs of dissent becoming more visible among Saudi Arabian youths

By Janine Zacharia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 10, 2011; 6:32 PM

JIDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA — It is 9 p.m. on a Monday, and the Jasur bookstore cafe in Jiddah’s chic Hamra district is hopping. Upstairs, Saudi men and women pack a poetry reading, while downstairs a book club discusses Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller, “Blink.” Nearby, a team of young comic writers is hashing out the latest in a series of YouTube episodes that satirize Saudi politics and society.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Hasan Eid, the editor of a poetry anthology, reads from a new collection. “I love my country to death. But what I see every day makes me sigh under my breath.”

With some Saudi men in jeans, others in traditional thobes, and women in black abayas, the emergence of the trendy literary scene is nothing short of groundbreaking in this conservative kingdom, where the mixing of sexes is largely prohibited and movie theaters are banned.

A growing frustration with Saudi political and social behaviors has been visible throughout the kingdom in recent weeks, as measured in budding protests, bolder blog posts and petitions asking King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to loosen up his rule.

But the discontent is particularly palpable among the young and educated in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia’s historically most progressive city on the Red Sea, which has long been at odds with the more religiously conservative capital, Riyadh. The new cafe has become a hub for young intellectuals to share ideas as the Middle East undergoes the most sweeping period of change in their lifetimes.

Inspired by their counterparts in Tunisia, Egypt and other parts of the Arab world, Jiddah’s 20-somethings are ablaze on Facebook, blogs and Twitter, tweeting away on iPhones and BlackBerrys about government corruption and the need for political reform, while organizing social gatherings such as those at the bookstore that have long been taboo.

The cafe, called Jasur, or Bridges, opened nine months ago; its owners said they wanted to create a business that could help the community. That the government hasn’t tried to disrupt events at the shop might signal a growing tolerance among local authorities. But the mixing of sexes in public settings remains otherwise rare because of government scrutiny and rules.

Even before the spirit of revolution spread across the Arab world, residents of Jiddah had been in an iconoclastic mood. A massive flood in January displaced thousands of people and damaged 95 percent of the city’s streets, prompting complaints from local residents about the absence of an effective government response.

Jiddah’s young reformers have stopped short of calling for the kinds of street protests that toppled governments in Egypt and Tunisia and have left others under threat. In interviews, young Saudis said they are determined that whatever happens in Saudi Arabia remains orderly.

“We don’t want a revolution,” said Mahmoud Sabbagh, 28, a prominent Jiddah blogger and leader of local activists. Instead, Sabbagh said, the kingdom needs to take small steps toward greater democracy and the kind of freedom manifest in the new cafe culture.

“We need to take this phenomenon,” Sabbagh said of the lively discussions unfolding at the bookstore, “and turn it into a right.”

Sabbagh recently gave up a column at the Saudi newspaper al-Watan to focus his activism online through Twitter and other social media. Last month, he was one of five core drafters of a petition sent by 45 students and others to the king asking for political reforms, and he routinely fields calls from princes in the Saudi royal court who want to keep informed of youth sentiment in the city.

His tweets are typical of those of his generation. As security services in Egypt tried to keep a lid on documents detailing past treatment of political prisoners by the country’s Interior Ministry, Sabbagh wrote that “this should end an era in the Arab region of spying on their own people.” When female booksellers and readers were harassed by religious police at a recent international book fair in Riyadh, he tweeted, “Are we about to witness a new McCarthyism in Saudi?”

Among the most notable shifts, Sabbagh said, has been the willingness of Saudis to move beyond anonymity in registering their complaints. “People put their names on Facebook and Twitter,” he said. “People don’t care anymore. They act bravely.”

One of the boldest displays of the new courage is a YouTube show, “At-Tayer,” loosely translated, “On the Fly.”

The webisodes – mock newscasts and skits similar to those on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” – have drawn up to 380,000 viewers per episode. One recent show, which is in Arabic and intended primarily for a Saudi audience, was for one day the 15th most viewed worldwide in YouTube’s entertainment category.

The episodes have poked fun at a range of targets, including the kingdom’s minister of information, the high salaries paid to the shura council that advises the king, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi and the oddities of Saudi society, such as how boredom drives Saudis to find excuses to celebrate in the streets. But it has stopped short of overt jokes about the king, who remains admired, including among Jiddah’s younger generation.

Lead comedian Omar Hussein – a product-line manager at Proctor & Gamble who does part-time stand-up – is 24, and the two main writers, Dima Ikhwan and Lama Sabry, are 22-year-old women. They are all part of a bilingual, new-media-savvy generation that seems to not even realize there might be something to fear.

“We don’t cross any red lines,” said Hussein, explaining why he thinks the government hasn’t tried to block the show. “We never offend a person.” The Web series, which receives enormous feedback from online viewers, he says, is simply “helping break down barriers and letting people talk.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/10/AR2011031002376.html

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