If Ever a Pair of Eyes Promised Paradise Jezebel It Was You.

Far too early in the morning for a rant, drive on.

Saudi moral committee threatens to cover “tempting” women’s eyes 
Manar Ammar
16 November 2011

 Women with sexy eyes in Saudi Arabia may be forced to cover them up, according to the spokesperson of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) in the conservative Gulf kingdom.

Spokesman of the Ha’eal district, Sheikh Motlab al-Nabet said the committee has the right to stop a women whose eyes seem “tempting” and order her to cover them immediately.

Saudi women are already forced to wear a loose black dress and to cover their hair and in some areas, their face, while in public or face fines or sometimes worse, including public lashings.

The announcement came days after the Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported that a Saudi man was admitted to a hospital after a fight with a member of the committee when he ordered his wife to cover her eyes. The husband was then stabbed twice in the hand.

The CPVPV is Saudi’s Sharia, Islamic law, executive arm and was founded in 1940 to ensure Islamic laws are not broken in public, yet over the years, the committee has been largely criticized over its human rights violations.

In 2002, the committee refused to let female students out of their burning schools in Mecca for “not wearing the proper head cover,” which contributed to a large number of dead. (See previous)

15 young girls died in the fire and dozens more were injured. The CPVPV men banned the firemen and policemen from accessing the girls as “it is not okay for girls to be seen without their full Islamic dress in front of strangers.”

The committee, which only accepts and trains volunteers, has questionable powers on the Saudi street, as they operate under the supervision of the King himself.

A Wikileaks document released last year mentioned that “wild Western-style parties” are regularly held at royal palaces in Jeddah, away from the reach of the committee, who stands helpless against any royal violations.

It was reported that the parties had alcohol, drugs, dancing and sex, according to American consulate wires published by the whistle-blower organization. bikyamasr.com

Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil

How Very Apt Official Saudi Calender Says It Is The Year 1433

Extremely civil of them to acquiesce to such modernity. But must be said, it strikes me as fairly accurate; about six hundred years behind the times.

Saudi Arabia bans using Gregorian dates

The use of the English language to answer calls or communicate, mainly in companies and hotels, has also been banned
May 17, 2012

Saudi Arabia has banned all government and private agencies from using the Gregorian calendar in official dealings.

The use of the English language to answer calls or communicate, mainly in companies and hotels, has also been banned, a local daily said.

All ministries and agencies have to use the Hijri dates (Islamic calendar) and the Arabic language, the interior ministry said. The ministry attributed its decision to preserving the Islamic calendar and the Arabic language, Arabic daily Al Watan reported.

In the statement to the ministries and establishments, the ministry said that it noted that some government entities were using Gregorian dates "unnecessarily", in a violation of high orders and instructions. Several hotel and company receptions used English in their communications, the ministry said.

However, ministries and agencies could use the Gregorian calendar, whenever needed, on the condition that it is associated with the corresponding Hijri date. Gulfnews

Plenty more on the Land of Darkness in the side-bar, tagged, Saudi and Us and Them.

The Kingdom in the Closet 'The land of sand and sodomites'

The first of three posts on religion and sex. (2) (3)

The article below was linked from, and is the essence of, Pat Condell's video.

The Kingdom in the Closet
Nadya Labi
May 2007

Sodomy is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, but gay life flourishes there. Why it is “easier to be gay than straight” in a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, lives in the closet
By Nadya Labi

Yasser, a 26-year-old artist, was taking me on an impromptu tour of his hometown of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on a sweltering September afternoon. The air conditioner of his dusty Honda battled the heat, prayer beads dangled from the rearview mirror, and the smell of the cigarette he’d just smoked wafted toward me as he stopped to show me a barbershop that his friends frequent. Officially, men in Saudi Arabia aren’t allowed to wear their hair long or to display jewelry—such vanities are usually deemed to violate an Islamic instruction that the sexes must not be too similar in appearance. But Yasser wears a silver necklace, a silver bracelet, and a sparkly red stud in his left ear, and his hair is shaggy. Yasser is homosexual, or so we would describe him in the West, and the barbershop we visited caters to gay men. Business is brisk.

Leaving the barbershop, we drove onto Tahlia Street, a broad avenue framed by palm trees, then went past a succession of sleek malls and slowed in front of a glass-and-steel shopping center. Men congregated outside and in nearby cafés. Whereas most such establishments have a family section, two of this area’s cafés allow only men; not surprisingly, they are popular among men who prefer one another’s company. Yasser gestured to a parking lot across from the shopping center, explaining that after midnight it would be “full of men picking up men.” These days, he said, “you see gay people everywhere.”

Yasser turned onto a side street, then braked suddenly. “Oh shit, it’s a checkpoint,” he said, inclining his head toward some traffic cops in brown uniforms. “Do you have your ID?” he asked me. He wasn’t worried about the gay-themed nature of his tour—he didn’t want to be caught alone with a woman. I rummaged through my purse, realizing that I’d left my passport in the hotel for safekeeping. Yasser looked behind him to see if he could reverse the car, but had no choice except to proceed. To his relief, the cops nodded us through. “God, they freaked me out,” Yasser said. As he resumed his narration, I recalled something he had told me earlier. “It’s a lot easier to be gay than straight here,” he had said. “If you go out with a girl, people will start to ask her questions. But if I have a date upstairs and my family is downstairs, they won’t even come up.”

Notorious for its adherence to Wahhabism, a puritanical strain of Islam, and as the birthplace of most of the 9/11 hijackers, Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country that claims sharia, or Islamic law, as its sole legal code. The list of prohibitions is long: It’s haram—forbidden—to smoke, drink, go to discos, or mix with an unrelated person of the opposite gender. The rules are enforced by the mutawwa'in, religious authorities employed by the government’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

The kingdom is dominated by mosques and malls, which the mutawwa'in patrol in leather sandals and shortened versions of the thawb, the traditional ankle-length white robe that many Saudis wear. Some mutawwa'in even bear marks of their devotion on their faces; they bow to God so adamantly that pressing their foreheads against the ground leaves a visible dent. The mutawwa'in prod shoppers to say their devotions when the shops close for prayer, several times daily. If they catch a boy and a girl on a date, they might haul the couple to the police station. They make sure that single men steer clear of the malls, which are family-only zones for the most part, unless they are with a female relative. Though the power of the mutawwa'in has been curtailed recently, their presence still inspires fear.

In Saudi Arabia, sodomy is punishable by death. Though that penalty is seldom applied, just this February a man in the Mecca region was executed for having sex with a boy, among other crimes. (For this reason, the names of most people in this story have been changed.) Ask many Saudis about homosexuality, and they’ll wince with repugnance. “I disapprove,” Rania, a 32-year-old human-resources manager, told me firmly. “Women weren’t meant to be with women, and men aren’t supposed to be with men.”

This legal and public condemnation notwithstanding, the kingdom leaves considerable space for homosexual behavior. As long as gays and lesbians maintain a public front of obeisance to Wahhabist norms, they are left to do what they want in private. Vibrant communities of men who enjoy sex with other men can be found in cosmopolitan cities like Jeddah and Riyadh. They meet in schools, in cafés, in the streets, and on the Internet. “You can be cruised anywhere in Saudi Arabia, any time of the day,” said Radwan, a 42-year-old gay Saudi American who grew up in various Western cities and now lives in Jeddah. “They’re quite shameless about it.” Talal, a Syrian who moved to Riyadh in 2000, calls the Saudi capital a “gay heaven.”

This is surprising enough. But what seems more startling, at least from a Western perspective, is that some of the men having sex with other men don’t consider themselves gay. For many Saudis, the fact that a man has sex with another man has little to do with “gayness.” The act may fulfill a desire or a need, but it doesn’t constitute an identity. Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity, as long as he is in the “top,” or active, role. This attitude gives Saudi men who engage in homosexual behavior a degree of freedom. But as a more Westernized notion of gayness—a notion that stresses orientation over acts—takes hold in the country, will this delicate balance survive?

‘They will seduce you’

When Yasser hit puberty, he grew attracted to his male cousins. Like many gay and lesbian teenagers everywhere, he felt isolated. “I used to have the feeling that I was the queerest in the country,” he recalled. “But then I went to high school and discovered there are others like me. Then I find out, it’s a whole society.”

This society thrives just below the surface. During the afternoon, traffic cops patrol outside girls’ schools as classes end, in part to keep boys away. But they exert little control over what goes on inside. A few years ago, a Jeddah- based newspaper ran a story on lesbianism in high schools, reporting that girls were having sex in the bathrooms. Yasmin, a 21-year-old student in Riyadh who’d had a brief sexual relationship with a girlfriend (and was the only Saudi woman who’d had a lesbian relationship who was willing to speak with me for this story), told me that one of the department buildings at her college is known as a lesbian enclave. The building has large bathroom stalls, which provide privacy, and walls covered with graffiti offering romantic and religious advice; tips include “she doesn’t really love you no matter what she tells you” and “before you engage in anything with [her] remember: God is watching you.” In Saudi Arabia, “It’s easier to be a lesbian [than a heterosexual]. There’s an overwhelming number of people who turn to lesbianism,” Yasmin said, adding that the number of men in the kingdom who turn to gay sex is even greater. “They’re not really homosexual,” she said. “They’re like cell mates in prison.”

This analogy came up again and again during my conversations. As Radwan, the Saudi American, put it, “Some Saudi [men] can’t have sex with women, so they have sex with guys. When the sexes are so strictly segregated”—men are allowed little contact with women outside their families, in order to protect women’s purity—“how do they have a chance to have sex with a woman and not get into trouble?” Tariq, a 24-year-old in the travel industry, explains that many “tops” are simply hard up for sex, looking to break their abstinence in whatever way they can. Francis, a 34-year-old beauty queen from the Philippines (in 2003 he won a gay beauty pageant held in a private house in Jeddah by a group of Filipinos), reported that he’s had sex with Saudi men whose wives were pregnant or menstruating; when those circumstances changed, most of the men stopped calling. “If they can’t use their wives,” Francis said, “they have this option with gays.”

Gay courting in the kingdom is often overt—in fact, the preferred mode is cruising. “When I was new here, I was worried when six or seven cars would follow me as I walked down the street,” Jamie, a 31-year-old Filipino florist living in Jeddah, told me. “Especially if you’re pretty like me, they won’t stop chasing you.” John Bradley, the author of Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis (2005), says that most male Western expatriates here, gay or not, have been propositioned by Saudi men driving by “at any time of the day or night, quite openly and usually very, very persistently.”

Many gay expatriates say they feel more at home in the kingdom than in their native lands. Jason, a South African educator who has lived in Jeddah since 2002, notes that although South Africa allows gay marriage, “it’s as though there are more gays here.” For Talal, Riyadh became an escape. When he was 17 and living in Da­mas­cus, his father walked in on him having sex with a male friend. He hit Talal and grounded him for two months, letting him out of the house only after he swore he was no longer attracted to men. Talal’s pale face flushed crimson as he recalled his shame at disappointing his family. Eager to escape the weight of their expectations, he took a job in Riyadh. When he announced that he would be moving, his father responded, “You know all Saudis like boys, and you are white. Take care.” Talal was pleased to find a measure of truth in his father’s warning—his fair skin made him a hit among the locals.

Marcos, a 41-year-old from the Philippines, was arrested in 1996 for attending a party featuring a drag show. He spent nine months in prison, where he got 200 lashes, before being deported. Still, he opted to return; he loves his work in fashion, which pays decently, and the social opportunities are an added bonus. “Guys romp around and parade in front of you,” he told me. “They will seduce you. It’s up to you how many you want, every day.” Go to page two.

Saudi Arabia Executes Woman Convicted of Sorcery

Update: A little more on the story here.

Saudi Arabia executes woman convicted of 'sorcery'

Saudi authorities have executed a woman convicted of practicing magic and sorcery.
12 Dec 2011

The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement the execution took place on Monday, but gave no details on the woman's crime.

The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 per session.

The paper said a female investigator followed up, and the woman was arrested in April, 2009, and later convicted in a Saudi court.

It did not give the woman's name, but said she was in her 60s.

The beheading took to 73 the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year.

In September, Amnesty International called on the Muslim kingdom where 140 people were on death row to establish an "immediate moratorium on executions."

The rights group said Saudi Arabia was one of a minority of states which voted against a UN General Assembly resolution last December calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

Amnesty says Saudi Arabia executed 27 convicts in 2010, compared to 67 executions announced the year before. Telegraph

Iran: The Cruelest Nation The Never Ending Evil

Australian Man Faces 500 Lashes in Saudi Arabia For Blasphemy

Do you think there may be a chance that one day this lot might apply to become a member of the twenty first century?

Australian man faces 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia for blasphemy
By Brian Walker
December 7, 2011

Australia appealed for leniency after one of its citizens was sentenced Wednesday to 500 lashes and a year in prison by a Saudi Arabian court.

Mansor Almaribe, 45, was found guilty of blasphemy after he was arrested last month in Medina while on a pilgrimage, Australian officials said.


It's unclear what Almaribe, a Shia Muslim from Victoria state, said or did to get arrested.

"The ambassador has urgently contacted Saudi authorities and will make strong representations, including to key figures in the Saudi government, seeking leniency," said Kate Sieper, a foreign affairs spokeswoman.

Family members said they are worried about his health.

"He is sick, and he has back injuries and he has diabetes," his son, Issam Almaribe, told CNN affiliate 9 News Australia.

Saudi Foreign Ministry spokesman Usama Al-Nugali said that the court system has an appeal process that Almaribe can resort to.

"We don't comment on court decisions or legal procedures. However, any court pleading, primary and judicial decisions could be appealed in the appeals court. All individuals have the right for a defense attorney, including non-Saudis who also enjoy the right of the presence of their diplomatic mission," he said.

Consular officials have contacted Almaribe several times by phone since his arrest in mid-November, and were in the courtroom during the reading of the verdict.

Australian officials said they were informed he was convicted of blasphemy and "making comments insulting to prophet Mohammed's relatives."


His sentence was originally two years imprisonment along with the 500 lashes, but the court reduced the sentence by a year, consular officials said. It was unclear when the lashing punishment will be carried out.

Blasphemy is punishable by up to a death sentence under the strict Muslim law in Saudi Arabia. CNN

h/t Anon News

Deranged sheep.

It Would Increase Prostitution Pornography Homosexuality and Divorce: Anything Else?

'End of virginity' if women drive, Saudi cleric warns
By Sebastian Usher
2 December 2011


A report in Saudi Arabia has warned that if Saudi women were given the right to drive, it would spell the end of virginity in the country.

The report was prepared for Saudi Arabia's legislative assembly, the Shura Council, by a well-known conservative academic.

Though there is no formal ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia, if they get behind the wheel, they can be arrested.

Saudi women have mounted several campaigns to try to overturn the ban.

Aside from the practical difficulties it creates, they say it is also illogical as in trying to keep them under family control and away from men, it actually puts them in daily contact with a male driver.

The issue has received huge international attention.

Some Saudi women feel it has attracted too much interest, obscuring other equally important issues.

As part of his careful reform process, King Abdullah has allowed suggestions to surface that the ban might be reviewed.

This has angered the conservative religious elite - a key power base for any Saudi ruler.

Now, one of their number - well-known academic Kamal Subhi - has presented a new report to the country's legislative assembly, the Shura.

The aim was to get it to drop plans to reconsider the ban.

The report contains graphic warnings that letting women drive would increase prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce.

A Saudi woman who has campaigned for women drivers told the BBC that the report was completely mad.

She said the head of the Shura had assured women campaigners that he was still open to hearing the case for lifting the ban. BBC

I Hope It Gets a Fair Trial, None of Your Sharia Nonsense Now

I just love stories like this from the land of darkness. It doesn't give the gender of of the thing, but I hope it ain't female. At least it ain't one of these fellows below, that would be curtains.

Israel's secret agent

Our allies the Saudis have demonstrated once again how deeply connected they are to reality. Ha’aretz reports:

A vulture tagged by scientists at Tel Aviv University has strayed into Saudi Arabian territory, where it was promptly arrested on suspicion of being a Mossad spy, Israeli and Saudi media reported Tuesday.

The bird was found in a rural area of the country wearing a transmitter and a leg bracelet bearing the words ‘Tel Aviv University’... Although these tags indicate that the bird was part of a long-term research project into migration patterns, residents and local reporters told Saudi Arabia's Al-Weeam newspaper that the matter seemed to be a ‘Zionist plot.’

The accusations went viral, with hundreds of posts on Arabic-language websites and forums claiming that the Zionists’ had trained these birds for espionage.

The Sinai regional governor last month suggested that a shark that killed and maimed tourists on its Red Sea port may have been intentionally released by Israeli agents in order to sabotage the country’s tourist industry.

Ah yes – to the Saudis and the rest of the Islamic world, not content with manipulating American foreign policy, being behind everything to do with modernity from the French Revolution onwards and flying planes into the World Trade Centre screaming ‘Allahu akhbar’, those devilish Jews are now recruiting the animal kingdom as intelligence agents – doubtless with their handlers posing as potted plants.

Isn’t it reassuring to know how closely the British and the Americans work with our Saudi friends! Spectator

File under Goat fuckers/Bronze Age

No Divorce For Eight Year Old

'
Here we go again, if a man had proper access to all that goes on in the land of darkness I reckon he could fill a dozen blogs.

An eight-year-old girl who was married off to a 58-year-old must stay with the man until she reaches puberty, a Saudi court has ruled.

The youngster was married off by her father in exchange for a £4,000 dowry.

Relatives of the girl said the groom had agreed not to consummate the marriage for 10 years and to allow the youngster to live with her mother.

The girl's mother, who is separated from her husband, had filed a petition for divorce with a court in Unayzah, 135 miles north of Riyadh.

But the court ruled that the girl must file the case herself when she reaches puberty, it was reported.

"The judge has dismissed the plea because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told the AFP news agency.

The marriage contract was signed by the father and the groom.

It is understood the father had debt problems and wanted to secure an advance dowry.

Arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents are occasionally reported in the Arabian Peninsula, including in Saudi Arabia where the strict conservative Wahabi version of Sunni Islam holds sway and polygamy is common.

A girl aged eight was granted a divorce in Yemen in April after her unemployed father forced her to marry a man of 28. source

When Hell Freezes: Women Drivers In Saudi Arabia

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Two Saudi scholars have said there is nothing in Islamic law to prevent women from driving.

The senior religious figures said the issue depended on the context.

They say women would need to be protected from harassment and that steps would have to be taken to ensure there was no mingling of the sexes.

An opinion poll published by a leading English-language Saudi newspaper suggests that this is a view supported by most Saudi men and women.

The two scholars are Abdel-Mohsin al-Obaikan - one of Saudi Arabia's senior religious figures - and another well-known cleric, Mohsin Awaji.

Both say that, in principle, Islamic law does not prevent women driving.

Everything depends, they say, on the context.more

Previous with clip, recommended.

What Century Is It? Saudis Sentence Women To Die For Witchcraft

The land of darkness again and at the risk of being a tad crude, for all their pretence the Saudis are little more than a bunch of camel shaggers with a barely definable veneer of modernity.

Witchcraft for Christsake, this lot make the buggery club look like progressives.

I shall have a root round and see if I can find a more comprehensive report.

Human Rights Watch has appealed to Saudi Arabia to halt the execution of a woman convicted of witchcraft.

In a letter to King Abdullah, the rights group described the trial and conviction of Fawza Falih as a miscarriage of justice.

The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read.

Among her accusers was a man who alleged she made him impotent.

Human Rights Watch said that Ms Falih had exhausted all her chances of appealing against her death sentence and she could only now be saved if King Abdullah intervened.

The US-based group is asking the Saudi ruler to void Ms Falih's conviction and to bring charges against the religious police who detained her and are alleged to have mistreated her.

Its letter to King Abdullah says the woman was tried for the undefined crime of witchcraft and that her conviction was on the basis of the written statements of witnesses who said that she had bewitched them.

Human Rights Watch says the trial failed to meet the safeguards in the Saudi justice system.

The confession which the defendant was forced to fingerprint was not even read out to her, the group says.

Also Ms Falih and her representatives were not allowed to attend most of the hearings.

When an appeal court decided she should not be executed, the law courts imposed the death sentence again, arguing that it would be in the public interest.Source

Human Rights Watch has more detail. and the letter of appeal is here.

No Roses In The Land Of Darkness

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Although this is "news" it's not, it is what now has become an annual event (a better article) in the land of darkness.

Just what kind of a miserated society is it that, by government decree, bans romance?

What a horrible place.

No red roses for Saudi sweethearts

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine's Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items colored scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolizing love, newspapers said.

"They visited us last night," the Saudi Gazette quoted an unidentified florist as saying.

It is not unusual for the Saudi vice squad to clamp down ahead of Valentine's Day, which it sees as encouraging relations between men and women outside of wedlock, the newspaper said.

Saudi Arabia imposes an austere form of Sunni Islam which prevents unrelated men and women from mixing, bans women from driving and demands that women wear a headscarf and a cloak.

Relations outside marriage are strictly banned and punishable by law.source

Saudi Gang Rape Victim Has Sentence Doubled

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The two hundred lashes on top of everything else doesn't bear thinking about, poor lass.

An appeal court in Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of lashes and added a jail sentence as punishment for a woman who was gang-raped......

But the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man.

On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence.more

Update from the land of darkness.

Popcorn With MEMRI TV

Computers are a big waste of time, a description that is neither true or accurate.
Computers are a big time waster, now we're getting somewhere.


Blogs are the biggest time waster, most true, most undoubtedly true.

So for more hours wasted/spent than I would care to admit to, what have we got? a few clips from MEMRI TV.

I suppose I could compare video clips with frogs, you have to kiss an awful lot before you find a prince. So having kissed a whole pile of frogs this morning I offer up these, well not exactly princes, shall we say princes in waiting.

I have in the past linked to many a MEMRI clip but what I offer up are a few of the lesser known ones.
The only one of the more popular ones I shall link to is Wafa Sultan, but by now I would have thought everyone on the planet must have already watched it.


So grab the popcorn.

If you have loose Western morals you will end up embracing homosexuality bestiality and paedophilia.

A compilation on the issue of wife beating in Islamic culture, woman know thy place.

Sixty seconds showing a mass hanging in Iran. Discretion advised.


Discussions on the educational curicula in the land of darkness (Saudi) more interesting towards the end.

Damned homosexualists, didn't Ahmadinejad say only yesterday that there were no gays in Iran? probably because he's hung half of them and the other half are keeping stum

Those damned footballers, stop now this is getting silly.


And last but not least Wafa Sultan.

I will dig through my own archives an see what else I can come up with.


Previous articles with clips.
Us and Them

Should Saudi Women Drive?

Fancy a Swim, Wot No Abaya! A Saudi First,

Female Circumcision. Who Is To Blame?

Well I Never! Qadhafi Loves Condi, Or Should I Say Leeza.

Us And Them Chapter 3650 Woman Know Your Place.

Us and Them Chapter 3649 The Glory Of Martyrdom

Us And Them: Muttawa Watch, The Land Of Darkness

Muttawa Watch

The first civil court case against Saudi Arabia's religious police was held on Monday after the police representative showed up for the second hearing, the plaintiff's lawyer said.

A legal representative of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice took part in the hearing after they refused to turn up in the first hearing on May 13, lawyer Abderrahman al-Lahem told AFP.

The representative of the religious police, who are charged with enforcing a strict Islamic moral code, told the court, which is known as the Complaints Commission, that religious police "cannot be judged", Lahem told AFP. more

Should Saudi Women Drive

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I have deliberately omitted the question mark in the title, it would be academic if I were to include it, but it is far from academic to those that inhabit the land of darkness.



Before moving on to this Memri TV clip I cannot help but notice this, and most other previous discussions that call for granting of some degree of human rights for Saudi women, always seem to be hosted by television stations in a third party country.




In this short clip we here from a male women's rights activist advocating that Saudi women be allowed to drive.
Opposite him is a female from the Road Safety Department who I can only describe as extremely cautious if not frightened, and showing a subservience that, from the point of view of a western male, grates on my sensibilities. ( listen how she defers to her "wise" government )

After these two have their few minutes we then hear from the Head of Islamic Culture, King Saud University. I think you will get the idea. clip watch it to the end.

Fancy A Swim? Wot No Abaya! Saudi First

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"From our own correspondent" BBC Radio 4.
Audio link to this and other reports in right hand side bar.











Well if I can't go for a swim I'll go for drive.







Can't bloody drive, I'll go home for a frig then.

Saudi Sunday: No Abaya, No Fire Escape

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Fifteen schoolgirls burn to death.

Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers.One witness said he saw three policemen "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya".

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Cocksuckers!

Saudi Sunday: Go to School. Learn Fear Hate And Jihad

Once you comprehend the duplicity and pretensions of Saudi policy vis--vis Islam and its dissemination of unbound hatred for anything un-Islamic, you will certainly come to terms with the realities of Saudi Arabia. Please bear in mind that the Saudi education system, in particular its religious education system, is in the heart of all the terrorism we are experiencing in to today's world. More. (long article)

Saudi Sunday: Where Have All The Flowers Gone

Methinks today I shall give the land of darkness some attention.

[T]uesday, February 14, 2006, (a flower shop owner closed his stores for three days in order to avoid harassment from the moral police. Al-watan daily reported. valentine's day is favorite target of the committee for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, viewed by the religious police as a holiday that promotes immoral behavior. Red roses often disappear from stores before, during and after the holiday in order to avoid attracting the attention of the police patrols, specially in the kingdom's capital .

I personally had witnessed many flower shops remain closed on the Valentine's Day, because they were fined last year for opening their doors on this day. They must remain closed even when they do not sell any roses at all. The religious police forces this closure because they do not want students and young people to emulate the infidels. These religious zealots are afraid that these young people might fall in love with the infidels. The religious authority does not tolerate any reason to love a non-Muslim. They must promote hatred towards the non-Muslims to erase from the minds of young Saudi any trace of love or compassion for them (non-Muslims). The saddest reality is that they (religious police) are very successful in creating fear and utter disdain for the non-Muslims through coercion, intimidation, terror and through sheer brute force-the almighty force of Islam.

In summary, I can say that signs of love are a great sin in Saudi Arabia. Music is "Satan's sound" and loving a non-Muslim is a serious crime, sometimes punishable with severe punishment. All these depravity and inhuman acts are perpetrated right in front of government's eye. It is, in fact fully supported by the state through money and infrastructure. Please note that all Islamic organizations in Saudi Arabia are supported by the government. The government is a silent supporter of all religious extremism in Saudi Arabia. This silent support for the Islamist bigots is to ensure that no one dares to criticize the royal family. The Saudi royal policy to wards the Islamist terrorists can be summed up in these few words: Burn the whole world if you (the Islamist terrorists) want, but do not say or do anything against us.

Therefore, who could really believe that Saudi Arabia is against the terrorists? Please do think this over.

Two More Get The Chop

Another post I lifted from a defunct Saudi Blog To say the least, this guy has a sense of humour. The link is also kaput.


Saudi Beheaded for Slaying Acquaintance

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A man who shot and killed an acquaintance after an argument was beheaded Tuesday in one of two executions in Saudi Arabia, the Interior Ministry said.
In the second execution, Mohammed Wahab Rowaidad, a Pakistani, was beheaded in the western port of Jiddah for smuggling heroin into the country.

This is most unusual. Not beheading drug smugglers, but doing it on a Tuesday. They’re supposed to do it on a Friday, after Friday prayers. You go to Friday Prayers in the main mosque of a large city, and if you pray piously, Allah rewards you with a public execution in the square outside. But there’s nobody around on a Tuesday.

The thing we should face up to as Saudis is that Public Executions are “showbiz”. So we should do them properly. If we were the USA, with their “by invitation only” executions, we could afford to be low-key about the whole thing. But we’re not ashamed of having ours in public, so let’s do it with style.

At the moment what happens is that a couple of guys put down a big polythene sheet. Then the executioner arrives. Then the van arrives with the prisoner and his guard. They lead the prisoner to the center of the sheet and make him kneel. If the relatives of his victim want to pardon him, now is the time for them to shout, and he’s released, pays blood money instead. Otherwise the sword swings, head comes off, lots of blood, people faint, someone pukes. Body and head are taken away. Polythene sheet rolled up. All over.

That’s not really showbiz, is it? It’s obviously a ceremony designed by civil servants. It needs more “pazazz”. It needs to be more “Hollywood”.

1. It needs a compere. Someone sleazy, an arabic Jerry Springer

2. Then we need a “trailer-trash” audience. Oh, we’ve got that. They’re called “Bedu”, come in from the desert where they live in tents. So that’s OK.

3. There should be a warm-up act to get the audience going. Belly-dancers from the Lebanon would be good.

4. Then we need some mascots, like a European soccer match. Little boys, dressed up as executioners, with miniature swords, come on and have their photos taken. Their parents look on proudly with moist eyes.

5. Then, like a big boxing match, there should be some lesser events first. A couple of public floggings, for example, 100 lashes each, would go down well.

6. Then the compere should interview the families of the criminal and his victim. Cue poignant photo of criminal as young toddler playing with stuffed camel, home video of victim sitting with family. Sit them next to each other, maybe they’ll fight, like Jerry Springer’s show.

7. Then when the victim is marched in, they should play an appropriate song. Like the one by Gentle Giant
I lost my head, it was not easy,
unknown, unread, it wasn't easy,
and each day, each night,
wasn't wrong, nor right,
I can't remember what I said
I lost my head.
Something the audience can clap to.

8. Then the audience can vote on whether the family will pardon the criminal. Then they can try and influence the family with their shouts – cries of “take the money!” and “chop the bastard!” build up to a crescendo.

9. Assuming no pardon, there’s a battery of stroboscopic lights and the sword swings. It’s magnified on a massive screen. There are endless replays from different angles. Then in slow motion. Two commentators, retired executioners, discuss the finer points of the swing. Sombre music plays as the corpse and head are removed. The lights dim. That’s it until the next time.

10. However, we’ll be showing highlights after the 9 o’clock news… Then there’s the “Executioner of the Year” awards in May. …..And don’t forget to watch “Favorite Execution Bloopers of all time”. ……….Buy “The 52 Executions of 2003” DVD Compilation……………..Visit the Executioner Hall of Fame…………………………..