The coalition for democracy, a Saudi opposition organization, held a conference in London in which it discussed the future of democracy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
| My guess is that it'll be ephemeral. What's yours? |
The participants among activists in the area of political action, and the human rights stressed the need of political reform in Saudi Arabia, being an internal national need before being an external demand. The conference discussed the position of the Saudi government on democratic reforms, human rights and the role of civil society establishments. According to its organizers, the conference concentrated on means of disseminating democracy and the role of the international society in supporting its march and human rights in the kingdom.
| I'd start by shooting holy men... |
News reports said that the participants were unanimous in rejecting democracy prescribed by means of force and stressed that the conferees agreed to make the change by Saudis themselves. The chairman of the Saudi center for human rights warned against the American interference in exporting democracy to the Kingdom. He called on Washington to stop supporting what he called the dictator regimes.
| I'm a little confused by that one. We shouldn't export democracy to Soddy Arabia, but we should stop supporting dictator regimes, presumably referring to Soddy Arabia... |
In addition to its organizers, the conference was attended by the Saudi center for human rights, the national coalition for democracy in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Institute in Washington and several Saudi activists and intellectuals in the field of defending democracy and human rights as well as foreign experts. Among the key figures which talked in the conference were Madawi al-Rasheed, the teacher of social humanitarian sciences at Kings College in London; Ali Elyami the research at the Saudi Institute in support of democracy in Washington, Hamza al-Hassan of the national coalition for democracy and the editor of the Saudi affairs magazine in London. In January 2003, the Saudi Institute in Washington organized the first conference on the future of democracy in Saudi Arabia at the House of Lords in London. |