Friday, January 22, 2016

WORLD’S WORST KEPT SECRET: WHY SAUDI IS FOLLOWING ISRAELI POLICY ON SECTARIANISM








In the wake of the beheading of Ayatullah Baqir al-Nimr, the Middle East has quickly reshaped its political landscape. In response to the execution, Iranian protesters stormed Saudi embassies in Tehran and Mashhad, setting ablaze the office in its capital. While Iran arrested sixty individuals involved and even sacked its Tehran commander of special forces[1], Foreign Ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council met in Riyadh to issue a joint statement condemning the attacks as “terrorism” and accused Iran of “blatant interventions in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Saudi Arabia immediately announced the severing of diplomatic ties giving Iranian staff 48 hours to leave. Five days later, a Saudi airstrike struck Iran’s embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa injuring several staff.[2]
Whilst the violence and rhetoric between Riyadh and Tehran may have been a predictable outcome, what has been surprising is the response from countries without direct involvement to the latest Saudi-Iranian confrontation. First came the announcement from Bahrain, expeditious in following their closest Gulf ally by cutting diplomatic relations. This was swiftly followed by the UAE in downgrading its diplomatic representation. While Qatar and Kuwait recalled their ambassadors, Jordan summoned Iran’s ambassador to condemn the attack and “Iranian interference.”
Even more curious however, was the reaction of several African states. Sudan, Somalia and the tiny Horn of Africa nation, Djibouti, also cut ties with Iran citing “solidarity with Saudi Arabia.” This unprecedented trans-continental “solidarity” has drawn distinctly little attention from political commentators, almost establishing its normalcy in the political world. Few questions have been raised such as ‘what reason do these countries have to involve themselves in the Saudi-Iranian dispute’ or ‘why was there no such reprimand against the Saudis after airstrikes on the Iranian embassy?’ The silence is deafening. And it’s not the first time in recent weeks a trans-continental alliance with Saudi Arabia as its pivot has been formed.
On the 15th of December 2015, Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Defence announced a 34 country military alliance “to fight terrorism.” Once again a passive and culpable media silence allowed the mendacity of such a notion to pass unquestioned. Isn’t this the same Saudi Arabia that is both the ideological and financial source of Islamic terrorism? In 2014 a “Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State” consisting of 59 countries was formed at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, while the US, France and Russia have all formed separate coalitions, thus why the need for an additional one? In 2015 the US dropped 23,000[3]bombs in their fight against terrorism, whilst Saudi Arabia hasn’t flown a mission against ISIS in 6 months;[4] if Saudi Arabia is so intent on fighting terrorism why have they been so inactive until now? In October, a Saudi diplomat even demanded Russia halt its attacks on terrorist groups in Syria.[5]
It is here that not only the intent but also the history of this coalition comes into question. It was first publicly floated, not by the Saudi’s but by Ami Ayalon, former director of Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence Service; Ayalon said, “What should be the future of the Middle East, ten years from now? It should be based on several parameters. First of all we have to accept that it is very important to create a Sunni coalition.” When asked about the threat to Israel from Iran he replied, “If we are going to act unilaterally, without creating the atmosphere in the Middle East, it’s not only that we shall have to face the reaction… but if the assumption is, we are part of a coalition based on a kind of Sunni coalition, meaning Turkey, with Egypt, with Jordan, with Saudi Arabia (who) understand that the major conflict is with Shi’a lead by Iran, and they create this coalition that will face Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will… (trails off).”[6]
This vision for the Middle East should not be taken lightly, especially in light of admissions of covert Saudi-Israeli cooperation against Iran over a series of five meetings since 2014.[7] On June 5, 2015 Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold and Saudi General, Anwar Majed Eshki announced the new alliance at a conference in Washington in which General Eshki presented a seven point strategic plan for the region. Whilst number one was peace between Arab countries and Israel, number two was regime change in Iran.[8] While Israel and Saudi Arabia share little, the one thing they do share is Iranian resistance. How much easier would each of their projects be should they unite to remove the “lead” force of opposition? Retired Israeli general Shimon Shapira explained the union as, “We discovered we have the same problems and same challenges and some of the same answers.”[9] Elsewhere evidence of Saudi-Israeli ties mount as Israel provide medical care to wounded Saudi sponsored ISIS fighters.[10]
This growing proximity between the Muslim world and Israel is now visible. Traditional Muslim opposition to Israel has waned through a series of political, economic and military ties. In 2009 Israeli Foreign Ministry official Yacov Hadas stated, “The Gulf Arabs believe in Israel’s role because of their perception of Israel’s close relationship with the United States” adding Gulf states “believe Israel can work magic.”[11] In 2014, Turkish-Israeli trade attained a historic record, a particularly remarkable fact in the context of global economic difficulties.[12] Qatar trades plastics, machinery, computer equipment and medical instruments with Israel.[13]The Sisi era has also witnessed “unprecedented coordination between Israel and Egypt” as “Sisi communicates directly with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu.”[14]
Ayalon’s proposal is beyond stoking sectarian tensions. He is advocating a complete manipulation of the billion plus Sunni world into a regional civil war for the benefit of Israeli protection. Saudi Arabia is not Sunni, but rather promotes its own brand of puritanical Islam, a cocktail of militant Wahhabiism and extreme Arab nationalism, while Iran promotes its own understanding of politicised Shi’ism. By suggesting countries form a Sunni coalition to unite against Shi’as precludes that the Sunni community must think along sectarian fault lines and view Shiism as the existential threat, and not Israel. National interests must now be seen through the lens of a manufactured Sunni-Shia conflict and all for the removal of the regions prime source of support for Palestinian self-determination and resistance to Israel. And with the Saudi adoption of this scheme, Muslims are falling into the trap. Jamal Khashoggi, a leading Saudi propagandist, recently declared that Muslim countries have to decide if they were “with us or against us” when facing the Shi’a threat.[15] A recent poll of Saudi public opinion conducted by students at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, an Israeli university, found that a minority of the Saudi public viewed Israel as a major threat to their country and instead cited, by a 3-1 margin Iran as their primary object of concern.[16]
The Sunni coalition has been Saudi Arabia’s Plan B. Its first option was to fund each faction of terrorism invading Syria and Iraq over the last five years to force a pan-regional sectarian war. US Vice President Joe Biden elaborated on this at a speech at Harvard University saying, “They (the Saudi’s) were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shi’a war, they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tonnes of weapons into anyone who would fight. Except the people who were being supplied were Al-Nusra and Al-Qaida and the extremist elements of Jihadi’s coming from other parts of the world.”[17] What the Saudi’s hadn’t foreseen however, was Sunni-Shi’a coalitions in Iraq and Syria, liberating over a quarter of the land captured by the Islamic State.[18] As a result of the policy to fund sectarian extremists and a Sunni-Shia war failing, the international coalition project, as spawned by Israel, is well under way.
From the perspective of the US, a Sunni coalition to war against Iran is ideal. Following the unsuccessful occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, there is little public support for a war against Iran. Although the invasions did bring financial relief in the form of contracts for American businesses, that could only come with regime change and the case for airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities haven’t even been successfully made. What better than exporting the issue to Saudi Arabia and their regional partners.
The mistake Saudi Arabia made was not remembering that the more people you tell your secret to, the less control you have over it. Eventually it will get out. Pakistan brought the issue of the coalition to its parliament for debate. The parliament initially rejected participation after the Saudi’s insisted that only Sunni Muslim soldiers in the Pakistani army be allowed to participate in the coalition.[19] Muslims across the world no longer need to ask, ‘why should a sectarian litmus test be applied to joining a coalition fighting terror and who exactly is the target of this Shia-excluded coalition?’ Amin Shalaby, executive director for the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs stated, “It is clear that the Islamic Coalition is represented by Sunni countries only; will it not play into the hands of the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites? This is the most dangerous potential development for the region at the moment.”[20] Moreover, not only are the likes of Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti present in the coalition, but countries with a distinct Shi’a presence such as Iraq, Lebanon and Syria excluded – despite Iraq and Syria being at the forefront of fighting Islamic terrorism today.
The Muslim community should be most concerned by the parallel between Ayalon’s plan to use Muslim blood for its own cause and its ominous manifestation by Saudi foreign policy and regional alliances. The interests of the Muslim world surely do not lie in the intelligence services of Tel Aviv, or Washington for that matter, nor seemingly in Riyadh. That Saudi Arabia has aligned with Israel suggests the war on terror may soon take a lurch in an insidious and violent sectarian direction, one which may irreversibly split a billion Muslims. The people of the Middle East are being exploited by their fears and a finely choreographed war is being laid out in front of them. The Muslim world used to consider Israel as its greatest threat, yet today somehow it is its greatest ally. Syria has all but lost its sovereignty with gangs, armies, a dozen countries feeding it arms for self destruction and laying waste to it through airstrikes, all under the sanitised language of ‘coalitions’ and ‘fighting terrorism’. If Saudi Arabia and Israel have their way, Iran will be next.
References
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Sunday, January 17, 2016

SAUDI ARABIA IS RUN BY CORRUPT AND DESPOTIC DONMEH JEWISH FAMILY

PRESS TV HAS CONDUCTED AN INTERVIEW WITH KEVIN BARRETT, 

THE EDITOR OF VETERANS TODAY, TO ASK HIS TAKE ON 

EXECUTION OF THE PROMINENT SAUDI SHIA CLERIC 

NIMR AL-NIMR.



The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: It seems that Saudi Arabia can’t tolerate even peaceful means of trying to reform and bring about human rights reform. Your take on this. Tell me the reason you think that this is happening now?

Barrett: Well, I guess we all are shocked and horrified by this but we should not be that surprised. Saudi Arabia is run by one of the most corrupt and despotic families in the history of the world. These are people who will stop at nothing to try to preserve their billions and billions of dollars they have stolen from the people of Arabia and deposit it in not just Swiss bank accounts but in the Western petro dollar money system. They are propping up the Zionist-dominated money system that rules the West on behalf of the criminal cartel.

These people are organized crime figures and calling it Saudi Arabia is an insult to the people of Arabia that would be like naming the United States after its ruling crime family and calling it Bushy America. Here in the United States unfortunately the media is not telling the full truth about the state of affairs in Saudi Arabia. The reports that we are getting on the execution of Sheikh Nimr and 47 people [in] total do not even mention that they are being beheaded. We get nothing but non-stop propaganda about the so-called Islamic State (Daesh) beheading people and in fact we have lots of fake beheading videos produced by … the so-called SITE intelligence group and Israeli front whipping up American hatred against all Muslims.

Americans are being brain-washed by their media to think that these people who chop off heads are representatives of all Muslims. But then when the Saudis do it and of course they are the ones who’ve set the tone for so-called Islamic states or Daesh who are essentially taking the same extremist Wahhabi Takfiri ideology from the Saudi ruling family, we do not hear about it. They are covering up.

If you look at the mainstream stories on this they are not even mentioning much less emphasizing this lured aspect that Saudi Arabia loves to behead people. The main public square in Riyadh is called Chop Chop Square where they are constantly beheading people and nobody in the United States even knows this. All we hear is Israeli propaganda that it is Muslims who do this because the Saudi- sponsor terrorists of Daesh are running around, beheading people.

It is time for the world to wake up and recognize that this regime in Saudi Arabia needs to go. They are one of the true heads of the Zionist Takfiri monster that is dominating the Middle East and I think that it should be clear to all Muslims and not just Shia Muslims. I am not Shia. I am a Muslim form the Moroccan school of Islam which is basically classified as Sunni. But all of us need to see that there is a huge problem with this ruling family in Saudi Arabia and they are the ones who are spreading the sectarian strife and civil war throughout the region.
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Saturday, January 09, 2016

Judaic Indoctrination of American Christians


The fateful question now is whether we, the rest of American Christians, would turn the other cheek to suffer more Talmudic abuse, or do what Jesus did: whip these Talmudists moneychangers out of our churches and completely out of our life!


 
By Dr. Elias Akleh
During my 36 years living in the U.S. I have noticed a systematic graduating process of Judaic brainwashing and indoctrination of American Christians. The American Zionist Jewish elite; the Chabad Lubavitch Talmudic Rabbis, had controlled American financial banking system through the Zionist privately owned Federal Reserve, had controlled American economy, controlled American media outlets; newspapers, radio and TV stations, internet and social media outlets, controlled the American educational system, controlled major industries, owned and manipulated American military complexes, manipulated Congressmen and even presidents through bribery and/or extortion, dictated American internal and foreign policies, and recently in the final stages are alienating American Christians from their faith and indoctrinating them into camouflaged Judaic tradition.
I had visited different denomination Christian churches, and there are so many of them. In a seven miles stretch street close to my neighborhood I counted seventeen different churches. Religion is a very profitable business. Attending the service one rarely hears sermons about Jesus’ real teachings. If any, they talk about Jesus’ life and miracles. The majority of the sermons concentrate on the Old Testament, Abraham’s interaction with God, the God’s Jewish chosen people, the exodus, Moses and his ten commandments (actually there are more than 600 commandments; Exodus 20 – 23), the Jewish violent wars against indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, and the urge to bless Israel, God’s chosen, favorite and beloved people, so that one can avoid God’s wrath and gain His blessings. Worst of all is when you encounter an invited Jewish Rabbi in the church to teach Christian goyims about God’s chosen people and God’s Promised Land.
Talking to some of the congregation after service one can discover how deep this indoctrination is to the point where many believe that God is joining forces with the present Israeli state in its wars against Arabs. I was so astonished to discover that these congregations, some of who are scientists and teachers, lose all logical thinking when they, claiming that God is love, believe that God loves only the Jews. Other nations are not loved by God, but, as Jewish Rabbis claim, goyim are created only to serve the Jews. They fail to conceive the prejudice, the racism and the Jewish supremacism in this pagan concept.
What is more amazing is the utter ignorance of the Christian priests of the real Christian teachings they claim to preach. Approaching some of them with questions such as why do we celebrate Christmas with a tree, what is the duality of human nature, what does the Holy Trinity really mean, or simpler questions such as why did Jesus describe himself at times as “the son of God” and other times as “the son of Man”, one would discover how utterly ignorant these priests are.  All what they know is how to perform rituals ignorant to what these rituals signify. The blind leads the blind. 
The U.S. is littered with pseudo-Christian churches, organizations, television channels, internet websites and schools, whose covert goal is to brainwash and pacify American Christians. The most effective of these are the Philos Project, Christian Zionists, and Christians United for Israel (CUFI) among many others such as Baptist televangelist Pat Robertson, televangelist Jerry Falwell, and Pentecostal televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. The stated mission of the Philos Project includes “educating Christians on the theological, historical, and political issues surrounding Israel and the Jewish people.” Christian Zionism is merely a Jewish political organization who keeps asking American Christians to finance Israel’s wars to achieve salvation through the rapture/Armageddon. CUFI’s executive director is aZionist Jew; David Brog, the cousin of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and its front façade is preacher John Haggee, who would not stop defending Israel and calling for nuclear wars against Iran.  These pseudo-Christian institutions are financed by Zionist Jewish organizations such as American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress, and the AIPAC.
These same Jewish organizations have waged a religious war against Christianity in the U.S. They had financed and sponsored numerous lawsuits, and were successful, in banning Christian religious symbols displays on public land, federal institutions, and public schools citing the “Separation of state and Church” that actually meant to prevent the American government, basically Christian since its establishment, from favoring one Christian denomination over the other. So, erecting Christmas tree or cross; symbols of love and peace, at the White House is banned, but the erection of the largest Jewish menorah; the symbol of war and destruction, was allowed across the White House. The Zionist controlled media was also successful in turning “Merry Christmas” greetings into “happy holidays”, “Christmas holiday” into “winter holiday” and the word “Christmas” into “Xmas”; the letter “X” meaning deleted.
These Zionist Talmudic Jews and their pseudo-Christian institutions are indoctrinating American Christians with false beliefs such as that Jesus was a Jew or a Rabbi when he was really a revolutionary Palestinian Essene. The Jews as God’s chosen people and Palestine as his promised land to only the Jews, plus obtaining God’s blessings by blessing the Jews and the state of Israel are prominent beliefs these institutions emphasize. They pacify Americans through teachings such as “love your enemy”, “turn the other cheek”, “forgive those who trespassed against you”, “salvation through suffering”, and “only the meek shall inherit heavenly kingdom”. The meaningless belief of “Judeo-Christianity” has spread among American Christians. It is meant to deceive Christians into believing that Judaism is the root of Christianity, and Jews are Christians’ elder brothers.
The fact, that many Americans are ignorant of, is that Jesus and his Christianity is Judaism’s number one enemy. This hatred and enmity are emphasized in their religious books, in their literature, in their culture, in their celebrations, in their entertainment, and in their educational systems. Jewish hatred of Jesus is nursed to their children through television. Israeli television creates entertainment insulting Jesus and mother Mary. Jewish entertainer Sarah Silverman, who gets the Hollywood red carpet, entertains her cheering and laughing audience with her wish to kill Christ again. Their religious teachings describe Jesus as sexually immoral and his mother as a harlot. To fathom the depth of Talmudic Jewish hatred of Jesus one needs to read “Jesus in the Talmud”; a book written by a Jew Peter Schafer; a professor of Judaic study of department of religion in Princeton University.  This enmity is also found in their religious book “The Mishneh Torah” written by Moses Maimonides one of the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history. This Mishneh teaches that it is a “mitzvah” (religious duty) to eradicate Jewish enemies such as Jesus of Nazareth and his students.
A very important fact to recognize is that modern Judaism is merely a disguised extension of the ancient sexual and fertility pagan cult of god El/Ba’al/Yahweh. According to the Old Testament this is a terrorist, warmongering, jealous, furious, and homeless god, who demands his people to build him a home; temple. In ancient times, every tribe had its own god and called itself god’s people. Isra-el (people of El) is an inheritance from old times. Ba’al is a Hebrew word that means man/husband. This El/Ba’al/Yahweh god had a consort/wife known as Ashera/Astarte according to ancient Hebrew inscription found on 8th century BCE pottery dug out in the archaeological sites of Kuntilet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Kom in Palestine.
The Biblical scholar and theologian Thomas L. Thompson mentions in his book “The Mythic Past” page 170, that Asherah, also known as Shekinah and the Queen of Heaven, is the consort and beloved of Yahweh and the wife of El or Ba’al (Man husband). Jewish writer Raphael Patai gives similar description in her book “The Hebrew Goddess”.
Biblical Archeology Review quoted Israeli paper Ha’aretz Magazine of October 1999 wrote the following:“It will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, YHWH, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.”
The goddess Queen of Heaven is also mentioned many times in the Old Testament. One example is Jeremiah 44: 15-17 when the Jews living in Egypt answered Jeremiah saying: “We will not listen to you! We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.”
Talmudists and their terrorist tool the state of Israel are “The Anti-Christ”, who is intent on destroying the whole goyim world starting in the Middle East in order to establish their satanic Jewish cult of El/Ba’al/Yahweh. Jews hate and look down at all non-Jews/gentiles/goyims. Jewish chief Rabbis describe gentiles as cattle created in the human form only to serve the Jews. This Judaic anti-Christian war was jump started immediately after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Palestinian Christian churches and communities, such as in Nazareth and Haifa, were viciously attacked routinely by extremist Jews. The worst outbreak of organized desecration of Christian properties and churches took place in September 1963, when hundreds of religiously extremist ultra-orthodox vigilante group, called the Society of Activists of the Torah Camp (Hever Peelei Hamahane Hatorati), orchestrated simultaneous attacks on Christian missions and schools in Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa cities.
This Jewish anti-Christian hatred and attacks are still going on at the present in the Holy Land. Even Israeli newspapers, such as Haaretz, reported this hatred. Under the title of “Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them” the paper reported “According to Archbishop Manougian in Jerusalem: The Israeli government is anti-Christian.  Christian priests and nuns are being spat on every day by Jews in Jerusalem, Christian churches are being burnt and vandalized routinely.”
The Israeli “Tikun Olam” gave an example of Israeli hatred against Christians last month just before Christmas. Under the title of “Israeli war on Christmas and Christianity” their website reported that Bentzi Gopstein; leader of Jewish fascist group Lehava; financed by Israeli government and by extremist Jewish organizations, is calling for the ethnic cleansing of all Christians and Palestinians from occupied Palestine.
Through the many pro-Zionist American organizations, numerous pseudo-religious radio stations, Judeo-Christian TV stations, and multi Zionist Christian newspapers, Zionist Talmudists had successfully brainwashed and indoctrinated almost 40 million American Christians. Americans are living under the mercy of the Jewish usury banking system, have become consumers rather than producers, turned into nonsensical Judeo-Christians, accepted homosexuality as the norms, and enthusiastically became Jewish proxy soldiers fighting Israel’s wars.
The fateful question now is whether we, the rest of American Christians, would turn the other cheek to suffer more Talmudic abuse, or do what Jesus did: whip these Talmudists moneychangers out of our churches and completely out of our life!
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Sunday, January 03, 2016

Bani Saud’s atrocious human rights record

By Tahir Mustafa

Whose guilt is greater in violating the human rights of people: Bani Saud or Bani Israel? Perhaps it does not matter since they are partners in crime and have fully embraced each other. The kissing cousins have illegally occupied the two holy lands by brute force and are busy terrorizing the respective populations under their control. Both also seem to be nearing the end of their miserable existence.
Even as the Zionists were busy clubbing Palestinian children to death, Bani Saud ushered in the new Gregorian calendar year with mass executions in an attempt to terrorize the restless population of the Arabian Peninsula. This was followed on January 12 by the arrest of Samar Badawi, sister of the jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi that Amnesty International described as “damning proof” of the medieval Kingdom’s atrocious human rights record.
Samar Badawi was arrested with her two-year-old daughter in the port city of Jeddah on January 12. The police interrogated her for four hours before she was thrown in the notorious Dhaban prison, Amnesty said in its statement. One wonders what the muttawi‘oon (the Saudi thought police) would say about male police officers (there are no female police officers in the Kingdom) — non-mahram men (not related by blood or marriage) — interrogating a woman. The muttawi‘oon usually beat up men and women if they are seen together but are not related to each other. “The arrest… is the latest example of Saudi Arabia’s utter contempt for its human rights obligations and provides further damning proof of the authorities’ intent to suppress all signs of peaceful dissent,” Amnesty’s statement added.
Raif Badawi, 31, was detained in 2012 for criticizing the Saudi regime. He received 50 lashes in a public square in Jeddah in January 2015 as the first installment of his 1,000-flogging sentence. He was deeply traumatized by the flogging and is reported to be in very poor health. The CBC program, “As it Happens,” confirmed this on January 18 while talking to a human rights monitor for Amnesty International. The rights group has held protests against Saudi mistreatment of human rights activists including Raif Badawi and Waleed Abu al-Khayr, a human rights lawyer who is also in prison because he dared to defend human rights activists in court. He has been sentenced to a 15-year jail sentence against which Amnesty supporters demonstrated in front of the Saudi embassy in the German capital, Berlin, January 8, according to the French news agency, AFP.

Raif Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, wrote on her Twitter page that Samar’s arrest was related to her alleged role in managing a Twitter account campaigning for the release of her ex-husband, Waleed Abu al-Khayr. It is interesting to note that Abu al-Khayr first came to prominence when he took on Samar Badawi’s case who had been physically and mentally abused by her own father. When she fled to a women’s shelter, her father charged her with “parental disobedience.” She was arrested and thrown in jail. Abu al-Khayr defended her and after winning her release, married her. In October 2013, Abu al-Khayr was arrested and imprisoned for three months because he stood with victims of the Kingdom’s flawed judicial system.
In an op-ed piece published in the Washington Post on November 26, 2013, Abu al-Khayr wrote,
My country’s legal system is based on uncodified principles of Islamic law, which leaves judges largely free to decide what actions, in their view, are crimes, as well as the appropriate punishments. I believe that the Interior Ministry actively encourages religious extremism and intolerance among the judiciary, recognizing that judges with these views are far more willing to convict human rights and civil society advocates of vague religious and social offenses.
One of the principal causes of my conviction was my reaction to the unfair trial of 16 men known as the “Jiddah reformers,” nine of whom were trying to set up a human rights organization. Prosecutors castigated them as extremists and terrorists, and a judge sentenced all of them to lengthy jail terms. I signed a statement in 2012 criticizing the convictions and calling for the men’s release. That signature was the basis of my conviction last month [October 2013].

Arbitrary law

To better understand the arbitrary nature of Saudi law, one must consider the manner in which the courts handled a celebrity preacher’s case. Saudi citizens were outraged by a Riyadh court verdict in February 2013 that let the celebrity TV preacher Fayhan al-Ghamdi get away with a light sentence after he was convicted of raping and brutally torturing his five-year-old daughter Lamah. The child died in hospital after being so horribly brutalized and abused by her own father.
Rather than sentencing him to death for committing murder, not to mention raping her, as would be the case with ordinary offenders (less than a month after the public execution of a poor, frightened Sri Lankan maid, Rizana Nafeek, who was wrongly accused of smothering a child in her care to death), or at the very least being locked up for life for such a horrendous crime, al-Ghamdi served only a few months in jail before the judge ruled the prosecution could only seek “blood money.”
The judge fined him a mere $50,000 in blood money to be paid to the girl’s mother whom the preacher had divorced. Albawaba News, a Saudi internet news service, quoted the judge as saying, “Blood money and the time the defendant had served in prison since Lamah’s death [in December 2011] suffices as punishment.”
Why did the preacher torture and brutalize his own daughter? He had accused the five-year-old girl of “losing her virginity.” The implication was of the child having illicit sexual relations with somebody. Would a five-year-old girl even know about sex?
Under Saudi law, fathers cannot be executed for murdering their children or husbands for killing their wives. What ayah of the Qur’an or hadith of the Prophet (pbuh) allows this? This may be based on some primitive tribal custom of Najd that the regime and its enabling preachers insist is part of Islam, but it has nothing to do with Qur’anic teachings or the Prophetic Sunnah.
Al-Ghamdi admitted to using a cane and cable to “punish” the child. The young girl was admitted to hospital on December 25, 2011 with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs, broken left arm, and extensive bruising and burns. She died several weeks later. Randa al-Kaleeb, a social worker at the Riyadh hospital where Lamah was admitted, said the girl’s back was broken and that she had been “raped everywhere.” What kind of a father, much less one who claims to be a religious scholar, would inflict such harm on his own child? Al-Ghamdi’s conduct caused such outrage that there were public calls for his execution. Three Saudi activists raised formal objections to the ruling through the Twitter hashtag #AnaLamah (which translates as “I Am Lamah”). It instantly went viral throughout the Kingdom.
While giving broad latitude to judges that hand down sentences based not on any codified law but their own whims, the Saudi regime was forced to intervene in al-Ghamdi’s case because of public outrage. “Today… the Saudi Justice Ministry issued a statement saying the cleric remained in prison and the case was continuing,” reported John Hall in the British daily, The Independent, on February 12, 2013. He also quoted The Times of London, “…sources in the Saudi capital Riyadh are saying the royal family had been ‘stung’ by the outrage over the case, with senior members intervening to ensure a stricter punishment is given.”
When al-Ghamdi reappeared in court on October 8, 2013, he was sentenced to eight years in prison and 800 lashes. This was the direct result of public pressure. The protests waged on social media had clearly proved embarrassing for the regime. The court also ordered the preacher to pay one million riyals ($270,000) — not the 10 million riyals that Lamah’s mother had demanded as blood money. Lawyer Turki al-Rasheed, representing the girl’s mother, confirmed this after the verdict was announced (AFP, October 8, 2013). The preacher’s second wife, also accused of taking part in the torture and murder of the little girl, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes.
Al-Ghamdi was never subjected to lashes. Instead, on August 29, 2015, another judge released him on bail, citing “lack of evidence” in the case. What evidence was the judge looking for: the poor girl was dead; she had been raped with a metal rod; her back and skull were broken. All this was confirmed in the hospital report and al-Ghamdi never denied inflicting such punishment on the poor girl.
It is clear that harsh punishments are inflicted on people demanding their basic rights or are critical of the regime’s atrocious human rights record, such as Raif Badawi, his sister Samar, or human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khayr. On April 15, 2014 when Abu al-Khayr appeared in a Riyadh court for routine hearing, the judge promptly sent him to prison. Neither his lawyer nor his family was allowed to visit him in jail.
Commenting on Samar Badawi’s recent case, Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Director for Middle East and North Africa, said her arrest “…demonstrates the extreme lengths to which the authorities are prepared to go in their relentless campaign to harass and intimidate human rights defenders into silent submission.”
International rights organizations have seen through the Saudi regime’s practices in using the pretext of “fighting extremism” to violate the rights of human rights activists. They point to the regime’s grim human rights record arguing that widespread violations continue unabated in the country. On January 9, Amnesty again voiced deep concerns over the imprisonment and abuse of peaceful human rights defenders and activists by the regime.
“More and more human rights defenders are being sentenced to years in prison under Saudi Arabia’s 2014 counter-terror law, while its allies shamelessly back the Kingdom’s repression in the name of the so-called ‘war on terror,’” said James Lynch, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. He added that dozens of prisoners of conscience remain in jail “at the risk of suffering cruel punishments and ill-treatment for their peaceful activism.”
While the Saudi regime’s atrocious human rights record has a long history, abuses intensified in the wake of the Islamic Awakening movements that swept a number of long-entrenched dictators from power in 2011. The winds of change affected the medieval Kingdom as well. A number of activists started a campaign for some basic freedoms. Their demands were not revolutionary; they merely wanted certain basic rights such as the right of assembly and forming associations. Such calls were summarily dismissed and activists arrested. Fearing further calls, the regime introduced draconian measures to clamp down on any such demands.
On December 16, 2013, the regime imposed a decree banning calls for reform and prohibited exposing corruption in the Kingdom. It also made it a crime to withdraw bay‘ah (allegiance) from the king. Those violating these draconian measures would be considered terrorists and sentenced to jail terms ranging from three to 10 years. The decree was published in its entirety for the first time on January 31, 2014 in the government’s official gazette, Umm al-Qura. There are a string of other provisions in the decree that were promulgated by then King Abdullah (died, January 23, 2015).
Immediately after the decree’s “approval,” then Saudi Minister of Culture and Information, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Khoja (he has since been sacked from his post for closing down the extremist channel Wisal linked with the terrorist takfiri group in Syria), claimed it struck a “balance” between prevention of crimes and protection of human rights, according to Islamic law. Khoja did not explain how it would “protect” human rights when it criminalizes calls for reform or exposure of corruption that is widespread among the thousands of princes. Not surprisingly, human rights activists like ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Shubaily called the decree a “catastrophe.” Calling for the release of 40,000 political prisoners or demanding a fair trial for them would henceforth constitute terrorism and the person would end up in jail.
The Saudi constitution that was “granted” by then King Fahd (died, 2005) in 1992 — no discussion of its provisions was ever permitted, much like the December 16, 2013 decree — says in Article 1, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion; God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, God’s prayers and peace be upon him, are its constitution.” There is not a single verse in the majestic Qur’an or any hadith of the noble Messenger (pbuh) that criminalizes calls for reform or prohibits exposure of corruption. Islam’s injunctions are very clear about corruption: there is severe divine reprimand and punishment for such misconduct (see Surah al-Mutaffifin, for instance). The Saudi regime is openly going against the injunctions of the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the noble Messenger (pbuh). This constitutes a declaration of war against Allah (swt) and His Prophet (pbuh); the Qur’an calls such people as mufsidoona fi al-ard (spreaders of corruption on earth). Allah (swt) warns against such conduct and severe punishment awaits those who refuse to take heed (2:27, 7:56, 7:85, 11:85, 13:25, 30:41).
Under Islamic law, allegiance to the ruler cannot be coerced; it is given voluntarily. Despite claiming to be ruled by the Qur’an and the Prophet’s (pbuh) Sunnah, it is Bedouin tradition that is being imposed on the people in the desert Kingdom. It is the same Bedouin mentality that is at work in the persecution and imprisonment of such well known human rights activists as ‘Abdullah al-Hamid and Mohammed al-Qahtani. They were sentenced in 2012 to 11- and 10-year sentences respectively, for criticizing the government’s human rights abuses and for membership in what was alleged to be an “unlicensed” political and civil rights organization. The problem is there are no licensed human or political rights organizations in the Kingdom. None is allowed.
Al-Hamid and al-Qahtani were convicted for “breaking allegiance with the king,” “slandering the religiosity and integrity of the Supreme Council of Religious Scholars,” “sowing discord,” and “attempting to shake the internal security of the country by calling for demonstrations.” Under the new regulations, several of these charges have now been classified as acts of terrorism.
Some of the new regulations would be laughable were they not so serious in intent. For instance, some religious “scholars” in Saudi Arabia believe that the earth is flat. The late ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Baaz (died, 1999), the former chief priest of the Kingdom, was one of them. Blind from childhood, he insisted the earth was flat because “…when I walk on it, I do not find it round!” If anyone were to say that the earth is round, he would be declared a terrorist and charged under the new regulations for slandering the “religiosity and integrity of the Supreme Council of Religious Scholars.”
Al-Hamid and al-Qahtani belong to the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), an organization that the interior ministry refused to grant license to and is therefore considered “illegal.” Other members of the organization serving sentences for convictions on similar charges include: Mohammed al-Bajadi, Omar al-Saeed, and ‘Abd al-Kareem al-Khodr. A jailed member, Fowzan al-Harbi, was put on trial at the Riyadh Criminal Court on charges that included “participating in calling for and inciting breaking allegiance with the ruler,” “explicit libel of the integrity and religiosity of the Supreme Council of Religious Scholars,” “participating in setting up an unlicensed organization” — namely, ACPRA — “publishing details of his investigation,” and “describing the ruling Saudi regime — unjustly — as a police state.”
In a press release on March 20, 2014, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a scathing report about the regime’s new terrorism regulations. Titled, “Saudi Arabia: New Terrorism Regulations Assault Rights,” the report decried the new draconian restrictions that “threaten to close down altogether Saudi Arabia’s already extremely restricted space for free expression.” It quoted Joe Stork, HRW deputy director for Middle East and North Africa as saying,
Saudi authorities have never tolerated criticism of their policies, but these recent laws and regulations turn almost any critical expression or independent association into crimes of terrorism. These regulations dash any hope that King Abdullah intends to open a space for peaceful dissent or independent groups.
Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the regime has cast its net wide and clamped down on all manner of dissent, however innocuous. The promulgation of the “Penal Law for Crimes of Terrorism and its Financing” is the blunt instrument the Saudis are using to criminalize peaceful dissent and calls for reform. The Saudi judiciary is notorious for handing down harsh sentences against those the regime does not like and give a free pass to its supporters and hangers-on.
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