Friday, February 1, 2019

Torture, reform and women's rights in Saudi Arabia


Women are being tortured for demanding basic rights in 'reformist' Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Saudi Arabia.
by
Today, every critical voice in Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly under threat, but the Saudi women's rights activists are feeling the pressure the most, writes Al-Khamri.[File:AP]
Today, every critical voice in Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly under threat, but the Saudi women's rights activists are feeling the pressure the most, writes Al-Khamri.[File:AP]
On November 20, Amnesty International published a report detailing how Saudi women's rights activists, arbitrarily arrested in a government crackdown earlier this year, have faced sexual harassment and torture during their interrogation. Citing three separate testimonies, the rights group said the detainees were held in solitary confinement and faced repeated electrocution and flogging, leaving some of them unable to stand or walk. One of the activists reportedly tried to take her own life repeatedly inside the prison.
Saudi Arabia has a long history of forcefully silencing women who dare to stand up to the kingdom's unjust laws and patriarchal gender norms. Almost four decades ago in 1990, 47 brave Saudi women were harshly punished by the authorities for participating in a major driving-ban protest - they were arrested and their passports were taken away. Some of them were even sacked from their jobs or expelled from their schools. 
But until recently, despite being abused, harassed and at times jailed, most Saudi women's rights activists were managing to avoid the full force of the regime's violence due to their high socioeconomic status. Their skin colour and religious and tribal identity were also playing a role in determining the level of abuse and harassment they were subjected once they were arrested. While undocumented female migrants and poor, underprivileged Saudi citizens were treated abominably in the kingdom's prisons, Saudi activists from privileged backgrounds were being dealt with with relative restraint.
Amnesty International's latest report, however, reveals that even a privileged background can no longer protect women's rights activists from the brutality of the country's current leadership.
This move towards indiscriminate oppression is a natural expansion of the kingdom's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's (MBS) one-dimensional approach to all forms of dissent and opposition.

Stifling all forms of dissent

For years, the Saudi regime has been making a clear distinction between individuals campaigning for social rights without directly challenging or blaming the political system, and individuals who are demanding, or supporting the calls for, holistic political reform and constitutional monarchy. While the regime usually allowed some limited and informal breathing space for the former, the members of the latter group always faced systemic and relentless repression.
This is not the case any longer.
READ MORE

Mohammed bin Salman: The dark side of Saudi Arabia's crown prince

Under MBS' oppressive and unilateral rule, regardless of their nature and aims, all ground-up efforts to bring about change and social reform are being swiftly stifled. In the eyes of the current leadership, every single organic, bottom-up rights movement is a threat to the authoritarian system - a threat to the survival of the pseudo-reformist, despotic rule of the young crown prince.
The new leadership does not care whether a critic is a woman or a man, from a privileged background or not. Whether someone is trying to improve the Saudi society within the limitations of the current system, or calling for constitutional monarchy. MBS has a "you are either with me, or against me" mentality - no critic, opponent or dissident gets an easy pass under his rule. 
This is why Saudi women's rights movements, which for the most part demand reform within the existing political system, are facing the worst crackdown since their formation in the early 1990s.

'Cosmetic' reforms

The Amnesty report on the torture and sexual abuse of prominent female Saudi activists, which came on the back of the controversy surrounding the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was another blow to the "reformist" image MBS has been working hard to maintain since taking power three and a half years ago.
The testimonies cited in the report not only demonstrated the regime's indiscriminate brutality, but also showed the world yet again that MBS' reform efforts, especially on the women's rights front, are purely cosmetic.
OPINION

Why did Saudi Arabia lift the driving ban on women only now?

Hana Al-Khamri
by Hana Al-Khamri
In June this year, the international community welcomed and praised the Saudi leadership's decision to allow women to drive. While many across the world saw this development as a confirmation of MBS' reformist credentials, anyone who had been watching the kingdom closely knew immediately that this had nothing to do with giving women more rights and autonomy and everything to do with improving the new leadership's image in the West and encouraging foreign investment.
After all, using women's issues for political leverage has long been part of the Saudi playbook. For example, in 2001, just three months after 9/11, Saudi authorities granted women with national ID cards for the first time in the kingdom's history, in an apparent attempt to gain some favour in the West and protect the royal family. A decade later, in 2011, women were allowed to participate in municipal elections and two years later they were appointed to the consultative Shura council for the first time. Both reforms were implemented not to elevate the status of women in society, but to stop the ideas of Arab Spring from taking root in the kingdom.
Today, MBS is following in the footsteps of his predecessors by making cosmetic and inconsequential women's rights reforms for political leverage, while forcefully silencing the cries for genuine reform. But he is also going one step further than his ancestors and succumbing to McCarthyism in his efforts to consolidate power. He is accusing all the critics and opponents of his leadership - regardless of social status, political inclination, gender and attitudes towards the monarchy - of treason and he is questioning their loyalty to their country.
MBS, with the help of his father King Salman, has already assigned loyal figures to all important sovereign positions, especially in the judiciary. Since his rise to power in 2015 and amid an escalation of politically motivated arrests in the Kingdom, hundreds of new judges and prosecutors loyal to him have been appointed to important positions. Last year, the Presidency of State Security, a security body overseen by the king, was created to combine the counterterrorism and domestic intelligence services under one roof. This presidency, which is naturally loyal to the current leadership, also has total authority over the fates of all political prisoners.
As a result of these efforts, the "reformist" crown prince has transformed Saudi Arabia into a prison. Under his rule, hundreds of writers, human rights activists (some of them minors), academics, economists, clerics and opponents within the royal family have been arrested simply because they dared to disagree with him. Women's rights activists were put in jail on trumped up charges of "treason". Moreover, they were sexually assaulted and tortured during their incarceration.
READ MORE

The Saudi women detained for demanding basic human rights

All this clearly demonstrates that MBS' blueprint for "reform" excludes the reshaping and rewriting of the social contract between the citizen and the state on democratic grounds, in a way that would ensure active political participation, promote freedom and respect civil, political and women's rights.
MBS views reform only as a useful tool to help him gain favour with the West and consolidate more political and economic power. Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that the reality on the ground in Saudi Arabia is nothing like the reformist dream MBS has been trying to sell abroad. The "reformist-minded" Saudi leadership is waging a covert war against Saudi Arabia's already suffocating civil society.

Not the time to call for more 'reform'

Today, every critical voice in Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly under threat, but the Saudi women's rights activists are feeling the pressure the most. Unlike male activists in the kingdom, they are fighting against both an authoritarian political system and a patriarchal social structure that keeps women in political, social and legal shackles.
While pretending to implement a reform agenda that aims to elevate the status of women in Saudi Arabia, the current leadership is oppressing women further by classifying any real demand for rights and freedoms - even when they do not threaten the political system - as an attack on national cohesion.
As the Amnesty report clearly demonstrates, every Saudi woman who wants to have a say on her place in society is now facing the threat of not only harassment, incarceration and intimidation, but also torture and sexual abuse.
For this reason, this is not the time to speak of reform in Saudi Arabia. Instead, it is time to speak up about the crisis of legitimacy, oppression, brutality and the shrinking civil society in the country.
Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly going through one of the darkest periods in its recent history, however, all is not lost.
Despite all the torture, harassment and intimidation by the regime, and the pressures of a highly patriarchal society, Saudi feminists are still inventing creative methods to demand their rights and change their lives. They are displaying great resilience in the face of absolute repression and this remains a source of true inspiration and hope.

Unpack the story of the young Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammad Al Qnun.

Listen to my long interview at Voices of the Middle East and North Africa explaining political patriarchal structures and norms, the tragic tale of women oppression and the crackdown on civil society and freedom of expression in the Kingdom  


unpack the story of the young Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammad Al Qnun. Rahaf who decided to seek asylum abroad, with writer and analyst Hana Al-Khamri( ).

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/vomekpfa-1/vomena-fen-2-2019-labor-protests-in-iran-rahaf-alqununs-case


A young Saudi woman is facing execution — for taking part in nonviolent protests




Ali Adubisi is the director of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights. Hana Al-Khamri is the author of a forthcoming book about female journalists in Saudi Arabia.
Israa al-Ghomgham, 28, first met the man who would later become her husband, Moussa al-Hashem in 2011, during the heady days of the Arab Spring. Like many others from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, they eagerly seized the chance to call for civil and political rights and equality for all. Ghomgham and Hashem, who soon married, shared a deeply held cause: the desire for peaceful change. Like many of their fellow activists, they stuck to the path of nonviolent demonstrations and calls for reform.
The couple’s dreams for a better future were shattered in 2015, when the Saudi State Intelligence Service raided their home and arrested them. Since then they have spent years in arbitrary detention at a Dammam prison. In August of this year, the Public Prosecution Office finally gave them a non-public trial, alongside four activists, in the Specialized Criminal Court, which is notorious for trying political dissidents and activists as terrorism cases. The charges against Ghomgham and Hashem were based on their political chants, social media posts and involvement in demonstrations. None of the evidence suggested any participation in any violent acts. Yet the prosecutor demanded the death sentence for all of the detainees except one. Ghomgham thus became the first Saudi female activist to face the prospect of execution for acts of peaceful dissent. She faces her next hearing on Oct. 28, when the court may deliberate on her final sentencing.
To make matters worse, Saudi authorities summoned Israa’s father, Hassan al-Ghomgham, and charged him with “inciting the public against the state.” The father now risks being tried along the same lines as his daughter and son-in-law.
The brazen murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul is thus just one more depressing part of a much broader and worrying trend. Saudi local newspapers recently revealed that the Public Prosecution Office has increased the number of cases brought to the Specialized Criminal Court in 2018 by 182 percent over the previous year. The government, which has one of the highest execution rates in the world, has also been making widespread use of capital punishment (for both political and drug-related offenses). So far this year the authorities have already beheaded 93 people.
This reflects the hostile political climate and the policies of the country’s de facto ruler (and son of the king), Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is using draconian anti-terrorism laws to ruthlessly target human right activists and behead those who dare to oppose him.
Ghomgham’s and her fellow activists’ cases illustrate that the crown prince’s much-touted reform plans have nothing to do with respect for basic and fundamental rights and freedoms. These reforms are not meant to improve the justice system, promote the flourishing of civil society, or to build mechanisms for accountability.
The crown prince’s plans for reform aim above all to consolidate his own power. A look at the royal decrees issued since 2015 shows that the king and crown prince have appointed their own loyalists to top positions in the government, especially the security and the judiciary. Amid an escalating crackdown against political opponents, the king has issued rapid decisions in the past few years to appoint and promote hundreds of judges and members of the Public Prosecution Office. Last year, the government established a body ominously known as the Presidency of State Security, which is specifically designed to oversee the files of political prisoners.
The Saudi regime has pursued a two-track strategy to promote its aims: a charm offensive in the West as well as harsh reprisals against any country that dares criticize their human rights violations. (See the extraordinary retaliation against Canada after the government there issued a tweet critical of Riyadh.) The Khashoggi case has cast fresh light on this contradiction between the regime’s propaganda efforts overseas and the continuing war waged by the regime against human rights defenders inside the kingdom.
In retrospect, perhaps one of the biggest mistakes of the international community was allowing Saudi Arabia to participate in the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women despite the country’s horrific record on women’s rights. This may well have encouraged the regime to move so aggressively against Saudi feminists. Rewards without accountability invariably encourage the bad behavior of authoritarian regimes.

The time has come to isolate Saudi Arabia and for there to be an end to the international immunity the Saudi regime enjoys. There needs to be an immediate suspension of secret trials, death sentences and torture; the release of prisoners of conscience; and the opening of civil society space. Without this, the Saudi people will continue to be ruled by a regime that exercises absolute power and ignores human rights. The kingdom desperately needs an elected ruler who represents the people and complies with the values of democracy, freedom, justice and equality.