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The diary of a Saudi man, currently living in the United Kingdom, where the Religious Police no longer trouble him for the moment.

In Memory of the lives of 15 Makkah Schoolgirls, lost when their school burnt down on Monday, 11th March, 2002. The Religious Police would not allow them to leave the building, nor allow the Firemen to enter.

Friday, March 19, 2004

US slaps Saudi government wrist 



US Criticism Disappointing: Kingdom



So now it's 13 people in prison for advocating such revolutionary changes as parliamentary democracy and human rights. Things that the West have had since the 1700's, at least. And the reason that there is "confusion" about the numbers is that in Saudi Arabia there is no "Habeas Corpus", no due process, no reporting of cases, no legal representation, no time limit for prosecutions. So you can disappear into their "black hole" and never be accounted for; just hope you've got friends or relatives who notice you are missing.

(They won't get me, I use a direct satellite link. Expensive, but it avoids the eavsdropping ears of the Ministry of Thought Monitoring).

It's good to see that the US has delivered its mild rebuke. What many of us would like, of course is for the US and the West to forget their oil interests just once, and really play hardball with this Medieval Theocracy. Let's have a blaze of publicity, UN Resolutions, the lot.

Just in case you hadn't got the picture yet:
Advocate Political Reform, and you go to Prison.
Screw a 13-year-old girl, and you become a newspaper Celebrity.
Any problem with that?

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