Mission & Justice

Maha Akeel;7/8/08

After more than 18 months of running around from one government office to another to get the permit, a Saudi friend of mine finally married her non-Saudi fiancé. Before a Saudi man or woman can marry a non-Saudi, they need a permit from the Ministry of Interior for the marriage contract to be officially recognized. The process of filing the form and explaining why the Saudi man is marrying a non-Saudi woman is cumbersome. For the Saudi woman it is difficult and rules are apparently meant to dissuade them from such an alliance. After my friend got the permit from the ministry she had to get another from the Makkah Principality to have the marriage certificate issued in Jeddah.

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7/8/08; http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=111595&d=7&m=7&y=2008

Being married can be like having a job, so some fathers have decided to treat prospective sons-in-law like job applicants. Namely, they’re asking for curriculum vitae before they will accept men as potential husbands for their daughters. “The CV provides me with about 60 percent of the information I need to know about the young man proposing to marry my daughter,” Abdullah Al-Salami told the Arabic daily Al-Eqtisadiah recently. Saudi marriage customs closely follow Muslim traditions and rules. As such, the father must give permission for a man to marry his daughter. So, the CV has become a useful tool for fathers like Al-Salami, who said that this requisite helps him identify young suitors who were not forthcoming about their backgrounds. He said that his daughter has been happily married to the man he approved for more than a year now, and that he intends to do the same thing when the hand of his other daughter is sought by prospective grooms. According to the report, some men are also asking for CVs from would-be wives in order to learn about their educational background.

7/7/08

A Saudi appeals court is due this week to review the case of a biochemist and his female student sentenced to jail and flogging after a lower court ruled their research contact was a front for a telephone affair. The man was sentenced to 8 months in prison and 600 lashes and his student to 4 months in prison and 350 lashes last November for establishing a phone relationship that led her to divorce her husband. London-based Amnesty International says it will consider the two as prisoners of conscience if the verdicts are carried out. “The charges … do not correspond to recognisable criminal offences,” the group said in a statement in April.

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Fatima Sidiya; 6/7/08

Police officers yesterday arrested three expatriates who were found with a dead body in their car, Al-Madinah newspaper reported yesterday. The three men told police that a friend had asked them to dump the body, which was of an overstayer, near his consulate’s office in Jeddah. Officers said the man had died a natural death. Meanwhile, the dead body of an Indonesian woman was recently found inside a bag in front of the Indonesian Consulate in Jeddah. Another woman was found dead and wrapped in a carpet near a garbage can. Maj. Abdul Muhsin Al-Mayman, spokesman for Makkah police, said, “These incidents do happen here (in Makkah) but not often. Things like this happen due to fear of being questioned by authorities, especially since these people don’t have official documents and might be overstayers.” He added, “They leave them so officials can give them a decent burial… the police get forensic experts to check the bodies and ascertain the cause of death. In fact, sometimes the bodies are in coffins.” Arab News attempted to contact both the Filipino and Indonesian consulates, but no one was available for comment.

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Ghazanfar Ali Khan; 6/7/08

An appeal status is still unresolved in the death verdict of a Turkish barber who has been in jail for 15 months amid grief, fear and suspense. Sabri Bogday, who was running a barbershop in Jeddah, was handed down the death penalty in April for blasphemy. “The case is in the appeals court in Jeddah, and the Turkish mission is awaiting the court’s decision at the moment,” said Turkish Ambassador Naci Koru. “No Turkish national has been executed in Saudi Arabia in the last 15 years and we will exert all efforts, with the help of Saudi officials, to see this man is set free,” he said.

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Molouk Y. Ba-Isa; 6/7/08

Marriages don’t usually generate much media attention, but when Juma Mohammed A.W. Al-Dossari was married in the spring, even Western journalists attended the celebration. Just months earlier, it had been impossible for the groom to pray at the mosque, make a phone call or even choose what to eat for dinner. Al-Dossari’s wedding seems like an improbable outcome because until last year he was a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Seized in Pakistan in late 2001, Al-Dossari was turned over to the US, transferred first to Kandahar Airbase in Afghanistan and then in January 2002 sent to the offshore US detention facility in Cuba where he lived in a concrete cell, denied even the basic rights afforded a common criminal by the US Constitution. He was released in July 2007 to the Saudi authorities along with 15 other prisoners. No charges were ever filed against him.

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P.K. Abdul Ghafour; 6/8/08

A new law abolishing the sponsorship system and streamlining the relationship between employers and their workers will be issued “very soon,” Al-Madinah daily reported yesterday quoting a Shoura Council member. The Shoura member, who requested anonymity, however, pointed out that the new law to be passed by higher authorities would be based on the proposals of the Labor Ministry and not of the National Society of Human Rights (NSHR). “Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi told a Shoura session that his ministry had presented its viewpoints regarding cancelation of the sponsorship rules and that the law would be issued very soon,” the Shoura member said.

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Md. Rasooldeen; 3/7/08

A Sri Lankan maid committed suicide here six days after her arrival in the Saudi capital, her country’s embassy said yesterday. The woman of the house found Fathima Fazmila, 24, hanging from a noose made by her sari tied to a ceiling fan, according to the embassy. “Ever since she came the maid looked sick and we were trying to make her feel at home since this was the first time she left home,” said Abdulaziz Al-Khereiji, her sponsor. Fazmila, who arrived in the Kingdom on June 14, reportedly told her sponsor that she was recently divorced.

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Adil Salahi; 30/6/08

Q. At the institute where I study, I was told by one lecturer that the institute does not allow women to cover their faces. Therefore, I did not cover my face. Later I learned that it was only this lecturer who objects strongly to this practice. Could you please explain the position, citing evidence in support. (S. bint Abdullah)

A. There is nothing in the Qur’an or the Sunnah to suggest that women must cover their faces in public. In fact there is evidence to the contrary. According to all four schools of thought women need not cover their faces or their hands, up to their wrists. The most definitive Qur’anic statement in this regard is: “Let them draw their head-coverings over their bosoms.” (24: 31) In fact, the statement refers to the opening at the top of a woman’s dress.

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Shadiah Abdullah; 28/6/08

The number of drug cases in Dubai increased by 37.6 percent during the first five months of this year compared to the same period last year. Announcing the figures during a symposium to mark the World Anti-Narcotics Day, Maj. Gen. Khamis Mattar Al-Mazeina, acting chief of Dubai police, said that 142 suspects — mostly from the African continent or South Asia — were arrested in the same period in connection with the smuggled drugs. Al-Mazeina said the busts included 60 kilograms of heroin with a street value of AED30 million and 10 kilos of cocaine worth AED5 million. Dubai police work closely with other law enforcement agencies to catch smugglers who use the UAE as a major transit point for drugs destined for the Middle East countries and other destinations, including East Asia.

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