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| Arabia | |
| Saudi Arabia Arrests 150 Protesters | |
| 2003-10-15 | |
| Saudi police arrested up to 150 people for staging a rare public protest in the capital to call for reforms in the conservative Islamic kingdom, the interior minister said Wednesday. Tuesday’s protest in central Riyadh was the first such large-scale demonstration in a kingdom that has been under internal and external pressure to reform. After demonstrators blocked traffic, police fired tear gas and moved in, arresting "no more than 150 individuals who gathered carrying banners," the interior minister, Prince Nayef, told the official Saudi Press Agency. Witnesses had said there were hundreds of protesters, men and women, most of them young. Those who want change usually are. "What happened was just a limited gathering in al-Olaya street," Nayef told the agency. "They are a small bunch ... this won’t happen again." Don’t bet on it. Saudi Arabia’s chief cleric Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheik condemned the illegal protests in comments published in a Saudi daily Wednesday, saying people with complaints should take them to government officials, not to the streets. Al-Sheik told Al-Jazeera newspaper that the protests were "chaotic acts" that "do not represent our pious society." Maybe they’re tired of being told they have to be pious? On Monday, the government announced it would hold the kingdom’s first-ever elections, a vote to select members of 14 municipal councils. Anyone doubt the vote is rigged? Tuesday’s protest appeared to be in response to repeated calls for political and economic reforms by the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. The group, founded in 1996, is one of the better known dissident groups, bringing together a number of Saudi intellectuals to support a more liberal, moderate system of government. Can’t have that, it wouldn’t be holy.
The beginning of a movement or just a isolated incident? While the Saudi mullahs have the religious police, I don’t think the royals will let them become as powerful as the thugs the Iranian mullahs have. Too much a threat. | |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #3 Of course it's rigged. Half the populace can neither run nor vote nor drive to the polling places. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2003-10-15 12:46:06 PM |
| #2 I hope for the sake to those 150 arrested that they have no fires in jail. Cooking the opposition in a crossbar oven is inhumane. A.I. are ya watching out for these people's human rights? [hard drive and cooling fan noise]. Thought so. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-10-15 10:59:06 AM |
| #1 I think it is the start of a movement. Unfortunately SA will have to go through 20 years of rule under a mullahcracy just like Iran. Dammit, seize the oilfields right after the princes fall and let the mullahs have all the sand and holy sites they want. |
| Posted by: Craig 2003-10-15 9:31:26 AM |