No freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is a country severely lacking freedom of expression.

As articulated by Freedom House, Authorities do not permit
criticism of Islam or the ruling family by domestic media, and a
national security law prohibits criticism of the government.
Reporters Without Borders, a non-profit organization reporting on
freedom of the press and of expression throughout the world,
labeled Saudi Arabia one of the 15 Enemies of the Internet.
Saudi Arabia is reported to have blocked over 400,000 websites,
in order to avoid its people coming into contact with sources
undesired by the King.
King Fahd made it clear that he did not have democracy in mind:
A system based on elections is not consistent with our Islamic
creed.

Fouad al-Farhan runs one of Saudi Arabia's most popular blogs,
blogging in support of "freedom, dignity, justice, equality, public
participation and the other lost Islamic values". On December 10,
he was arrested by the Saudi authorities, and has been detained
for the last three weeks without charge. His crime? Criticising
Saudi Arabia's pervasive corruption and highlighting the plight of
political prisoners. For his efforts, it seems he will now be joining
them.
This is the first time a blogger has been jailed in Saudi Arabia, but
it is unlikely to be the last. But the Saudi regime regularly jails
other writers and activists. Last February, 10 academics were
detained as "supporters of terrorism" for advocating democratic
reform, while in July two of the country's most prominent
reformers were similarly detained. As the web becomes a more
powerful forum for advocating change, the Saudi regime will no
doubt try and extend its oppression there as well.
Freedom of press and communication
Speech, the press and other forms of communicative media,
including television and radio broadcasting and Internet reception,
are actively censored by the government to prevent political
dissident and anything deemed, by the government, to be
offensive to the Arab culture or Islamic morality.
In 2008, a prominent Saudi blogger and reformist Fouad al-
Farhan was jailed for posting comments online that were critical
of Saudi business, religious and media figures, signifying a move
by the government to step up its censorship polices of the Internet
within its borders. He was released on April 26, 2008.
Online social media has increasingly come under government
scrutiny for dealing with the "forbidden" topics. In 2010 a Saudi
man was fined and given jail time for his sexually suggestive
YouTube video production. That same year another man was also
jailed and ordered to pay a fine for boasting about his sex life on
television .
D+Z, a magazine focused on development, reports that hundreds
were arrested in order to limit freedom of expression. Many of
these individuals were held without trial and in secret. The torture
of these prisoners was also found to be prevalent.





MUTAWEEN

The Mutaween in Saudi Arabia are tasked with enforcing Sharia
as defined by the government, specifically by the Committee for
the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of
Vice (CPVPV). It is a semi-autonomous organisation and
monitors public behavior to enforce strict adherence to Saudi
official interpretation of Islamic norms. It reports to the king via the
Royal Diwan (royal court).

The Mutaween of the CPVPV consists of "more than 3,500
officers in addition to thousands of volunteers...often
accompanied by a police escort."

They also keep a lookout and have the power to arrest people of
the opposite sex fraternizing, signs of homosexual behaviour,
violations of Muslim dietary laws, and other signs of un-Islamic
behaviour such as listening to rock music.

These Saudi Arabian police can confiscate materials which they
think are inappropriate, ranging from Western movies to alcohol
and pork, and many people understandably fear the sharp eyes of
the Mutaween. They are disadvantageous in the fact that freedom
of speech is completely not tolerated.

After arrest, they also can order floggings, imprisonment, and
public humiliation as punishments.



Even trying to be honest can be dangerous. One poor fellow,
Abdul-Karim al-Naqshabandi, apparently refused to help his
employer by giving false testimony. In retaliation, his well-
connected employer had him framed and arrested for a crime he
did not commit. To get a confession the police tied him up like an
animal, and beat and tortured him. He finally signed a confession
to end the misery and get someone outside to hear his case.
Even then, the police allowed no one to visit him in prison. And
although he could present considerable evidence proving his
innocence and provide the names of defense witnesses, the court
would not give him the right to defend himself. He was sentenced
to death and executed in 1996.

Saudi mutaween are often accompanied by the regular police, but
also patrol without police escort. They recently launched a
website on which un-Islamic behavior can be reported.
[4][5]

While on patrol, the duties of the mutaween include, but are not
restricted to:
ensuring that drugs and alcohol are not being traded.
checking that women wear the abaya, a traditional all-
enveloping black cloak.
making sure that men and women who are spotted together in
public are related.
ensuring women do not smoke in public.
formerly, enforcing the ban on camera phones. This ban was
enacted out of a fear that men would use them to secretly
photograph women and publish them on the Internet without
the consent of the subjects. The ban was enacted in April 2004
but was overturned in December that same year.
[6]

preventing the population from engaging in "frivolous" Western
customs such as Valentine's Day.

The punishment for such offenses is severe, often involving
beatings and humiliation, and foreigners are not excluded from
arrest. The mutaween encourage people to inform on others they
know who are suspected of acting unvirtuously, and to punish
such activities.
Among the things the Mutaween have been criticized or ridiculed
for include, use of flogging to punish
violators,
[5][6]
banning Valentines Day gifts,
[7][8]
being staffed by
"ex-convicts whose only job qualification was that they had
memorized the Qur'an in order to reduce their sentences, and
also arresting priests for saying Mass, and thus also actively
preventing the religious practices of other religions within Saudi
Arabia:

Saudi Arabia has no freedom of religion. Blasphemy against Islam
is illegal in Saudi Arabia. It is their religion, and all citizens are
required to be Muslims. The government does not allow the public
expression, proselytizing (conversion of Muslims into other
religios beliefs), and meetings of religions excluding Islam. For
example, one cannot wear a Christian cross or a Jewish Star of
David in public without fear of retaliation by the Mutawwain, the
religious police.
(This obviously makes it difficult for people with other religious
beliefs to work in Saudi Arabia and thus mix with the locals,
keeping the Saudis as much as conserved as is possible).

Perhaps the most serious and widely criticized incident attributed
to them occurred on March 11, 2002, when they prevented
schoolgirls from escaping a burning school inMecca, because the
girls were not wearing headscarves and abayas (black robes),
and not accompanied by a male guardian. Fifteen girls died and
50 were injured as a result. Widespread public criticism followed,
both internationally and within Saudi Arabia.
[11]


The muttaween are also known to welcome tip-offs from
individuals, paying money for information leading to the disclosure
of behaviour regarded as illegal. For example, restaurant staff
have been known to inform the Mutaween about visiting couples
suspected to be on a date and not to be married.
The unfortunate case of Nieves, a Filipino maid, provides one
example of how these religious police work. She accepted a
married couple's invitation to a restaurant to celebrate a birthday.
By chance, a male friend of the couple also joined the celebration.
Then, happening by and spying on the group, the religious police
arrested Nieves on suspicion of being there to meet the male. A
clear immoral act. While under arrest she denied this, but since
she could not read Arabic, authorities tricked her into signing a
confession she thought was a release order. This gave the court
enough excuse to convict her of an offense against public morals
and to sentence her to sixty lashes and twenty-five days in prison.
Then there was the Filipino Donato Lama. The police arrested her
in 1995 for possibly committing the unpardonable crime of
preaching Christianity. In a revealing letter about her later beating
and confession, she wrote, "I was at my most vulnerable state
when the police again pressured me to admit or else I would
continue receiving the beating. 'We will let you go if you sign this
paper. If not, you may as well die here.' Badly bruised and no
longer able to stand another beating, I agreed to put my thumb
mark on the paper not knowing what it was I was signing."
4
The
court sentenced her to 70 lashes plus 18 months in prison.


WOMEN
As realized in some examples already given, being a woman in
Saudi Arabia might be slightly worse than a normal male citizen.

Women cannot travel abroad or even on public transportation
without the permission of a male relative. Even then, they must
enter buses by a separate rear entrance and sit in the women's
section. The government forbids them to drive a car, or even walk
outside by themselves. Their husband or male relative must
accompany them, or for so "offending public morals the religious
police will be arrested." Nor can women play any role in the King's
government.

Most important, the police ignore the frequent violence against
women, especially by their husbands. Even harder to believe,
severely injured women must still have the permission of a male
relative to enter a hospital. The testimony of one man in court is
worth that of two women. Men can divorce women without cause
while women must give legal reasons. In school, women may not
study many subjects restricted to men, such as engineering and
journalism. In the words of the feminist Andrea Dworkin writing in
1978 and still applicable today,
women are locked in and kept out, exiled to invisibility and
abject powerlessness within their own country. It is women
who are degraded systematically from birth to early death,
utterly and totally and without exception deprived of
freedom. It is women who are sold into marriage or
concubinage, often before puberty; killed if their hymens
are not intact on the wedding night; kept confined,
ignorant, pregnant, and poor, without choice or recourse. It
is women who are raped and beaten with full sanction of
the law. It is women who cannot own property or work for a
living or determine in any way the circumstances of their
own lives. It is women who are subject to a despotism that
knows no restraint.


Among other things, the Mutaween look for women who are not
dressed in accordance with the Sharia. In public, they must wear
an abaya, a garment that fully covers their body and can be of
any color, as long as it is black. They must also cover their head
and face, on which the religious police keep a close watch. In this
respect, youd be much more fortunate to be a man .