#theocratic monarchy

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Saudi Arabia: Drop Charges Against Saudi-US Doctor

Saudi authorities should drop politicized charges against a Saudi-American medical doctor and former host of a popular wellness show, Human Rights Watch and The Freedom Initiative said today.

“ ... Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi crown prince in mid-2017, he reorganized the country’s security agencies, placing them directly under the royal court’s oversight. Soon after, these agencies arrested hundreds of critics and potential critics of Saudi government policies. Human Rights Watch documented serious abuses against the detainees, including torture and other ill-treatment, and arbitrary travel bans on family members.

The Saudi authorities continue to carry out arbitrary arrests and detention. Saudi rights activists have reported that the authorities detained eight Saudi writers, bloggers, and activists in mid-November.  ...”

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[canadianabroadvery]

PressTV-Repression under bin Salman at new level: HRW

Human Rights Watch says Saudi de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power two years ago has been accompanied by "deepening repression and abusive practices" across the kingdom.

“... But the international criticism has failed to halt a campaign against perceived dissidents inside the kingdom, according to the HRW report, with waves of arrests carried out against women’s rights activists and their allies this year, including the writer Khadijah al-Harbi, who was pregnant at the time of her detention. “

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Saudi Arabia Thought Golf Could Save Its Image. It Whiffed.

If the LIV Golf startup was meant to rebrand the kingdom, a year of foreign agent controversies, 9/11 evocations, and events at Trump properties hasn’t helped.

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Saudi Arabia Is Using Culture to Repackage Monarchy

The Saudi state is packaging its heritage industry as a mode of citizen participation. It’s an attempt to paper over a fundamental fact: the regime remains a dictatorship that maintains its rule by violently clamping down on opposition.

“ ...  The Saudi state has depended since its inception on British and later American power. To hide the precarity of its rule and the dissent and sometimes violent threats to the regime coming from its citizens, the government wants to erase its people from political discourse. It has transformed the rich and varied history of the Arabia it came to control over the last century into the history of the House of Saud. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s penchant for violence, spectacular projects, and erratic politics abroad has only reinforced this view of the country. ... the spectacular power of the Saudi regime and its alliance with one of the wealthiest families in the world, the Binladins, came together to transform the city from a place of pilgrimage as a sacred practice to one of pilgrimage as tourism. With the blessing of the Wahhabi clergy, it is now possible to perform pilgrimage from the enormous prayer hall of your expensive hotel overlooking the Ka’ba without rubbing shoulders with a throng of pilgrims less fortunate than you. ...”

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Saudi Arabia: Women’s Rights Activists Charged

Saudi Arabia’spublic prosecution agency announced on March 1, 2019 that the country’s leading women’s rights activists who have been detained following arrests that began in May 2018 would face charges and be put on trial, Human Rights Watch said today.

The crackdown on women's rights activists began just weeks ahead of the much-anticipated lifting of the driving ban on women on June 24, a cause for which many of the detained activists had campaigned. While some were quickly released, others remain detained without charge. They include Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef, Eman al-Nafjan, Nouf Abdelaziz, Mayaa al-Zahrani, Samar Badawi, Nassima al-Saada, Hatoon al-Fassi, Shadan al-Onezi, and Amal al-Harbi, all women’s rights activists, as well as male supporters of the movement, including Mohammed Rabea, a social activist. On February 26, Jared Kushner, United States President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, met with the Saudi king and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.