Do you have an opinion you are brave enough to share with us Brian?

Brian Ross wrote on Jan 17^th, 2023 at 9:19am:



Because they are dwarfed by this, dozy cockwomble:


Saudi Arabia has also imprisoned activists and carried out hundreds of state executions

[From your link]

freediver wrote on Jan 17^th, 2023 at 9:53am:


Will you answer mine or others' questions, Freediver?  I might answer yours  if you answer mine.  Tsk, tsk, tsk...   

Note : ⚠️ Trigger Warning ⚠️

Freedom of Expression, Association, and Belief

Dozens of Saudi human rights defenders and activists continued to serve long prison sentences for criticizing authorities or advocating for political and rights reforms. Blogger, activist, and 2015 Sakharov Prize winner Raif Badawi remains under a travel ban despite completing his unjust 10-year prison sentence in March.

Women’s rights defenders including Loujain al-Hathloul, Nassimah al-Sadah, and Samar Badawi also remain banned from travel and under suspended prison sentences, allowing the authorities to return them to prison for any perceived criminal activity. Human rights activist Mohammed al-Rabea, aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, and human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair remained in prison on charges that relate to peaceful expression or activism.

Saudi authorities increasingly target Saudi and non-Saudi social media users for peaceful expression online and punish them with decades-long sentences. On August 9, an appeals court sentenced Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi doctoral student at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, to 34 years in prison for “disrupt[ing] the order and fabric of society,” apparently based solely on her Twitter activity. That same day, Saudi courts sentenced Nourah bin Saeed al-Qahtani to a lengthy 45 years in prison for “using the internet to tear the [country’s] social fabric.”

In September, Saudi prosecutors summoned US citizen Carly Morris for “disrupt[tion] of the public order,” seemingly in connection to an ongoing investigation into her social media activity. In April, Morris published a series of tweets about her inability to travel outside Saudi Arabia with her eight-year-old daughter and access important documents for her.

Dual US-Saudi citizen Salah al-Haidar, detained between May 2019 and February 2021, remains on trial on charges related to his peaceful criticism of the Saudi government on social media.

The Saudi government is notorious for repressing public dissent and has a well-established record of attempting to infiltrate technology platforms and use advanced cyber surveillance technology to spy on dissidents.

Note : ⚠️ Trigger Warning ⚠️

Women’s Rights

Despite some reforms, authorities continue to implement a male guardianship system requiring women to obtain male guardian permission to get married, leave prison, or obtain some forms of sexual and reproductive healthcare.  Husbands reportedly can withhold consent if a woman seeks higher education abroad.

In March, Saudi lawmakers passed the country’s first codified personal status law. However, despite Saudi authorities’ promises for a “comprehensive” and “progressive” personal status law, the law entrenches discriminatory provisions on women in marriage, divorce, inheritance, and decisions relating to children. Rather than dismantling it, the law instead codifies male guardianship and sets out provisions that can facilitate and excuse domestic violence including sexual abuse in marriage.

Women are required to have their male guardian’s permission in order to marry. Once married, women are required to then obey their husbands in a “reasonable manner.”  Articles 42 and 55 together state a husband’s financial support is specifically made contingent on a wife’s “obedience” to the husband, and she can lose her right to such support if she refuses without a “legitimate excuse” to have sex with him, move to or live in the marital home, or travel with him. Article 42(3) states that neither spouse may abstain from sexual relations or cohabitation with the other without the other spouse’s consent, implying a marital right to intercourse.

Article 9 declares the legal age of marriage as 18 but allows courts to authorize the marriage of a child under 18 if they have reached puberty and if it can be proved that the marriage provides an “established benefit” to the child.

While men can unilaterally divorce women, women can only petition a court to dissolve their marriage contract on limited grounds and must “establish harm” as a prerequisite. The law does not specify what constitutes “harm” or what evidence can be submitted to support a case, leaving room for judges’ discretion in interpretation and enforcement.

Elements of the male guardianship system that remain in practice can prevent a divorced woman from financial independence. For example, a man can funnel post-divorce financial support payments to his ex-wife through her male relative if she lives with her family post-divorce, denying her direct access to the payments.

Under the Saudi Personal Status Law, fathers are the default guardians of their children. Even if the authorities order the children to live with their mothers, women have limited authority over their children’s lives and cannot act as guardians of children unless a court appoints them. The 2016  and 2019 legal amendments allowing mothers with primary custody of their children to apply for passports, provide travel permission, and obtain important documents for their children without a male guardian are seemingly inconsistently applied. 

freediver wrote on Jan 17^th, 2023 at 3:08pm:




Yeah, yeah, whatever, Freediver, whatever...   

freediver wrote on Jan 21^st, 2023 at 7:01am:




Will you answer mine or others' questions, Freediver?  I might answer yours...  Tsk, tsk, tsk...