Blogger who dared to expose Saudi corruption is arrested

RolandTD20Kdrummer
RolandTD20Kdrummer Posts: 13,066
edited January 2008 in A Moving Train
Ah those Saudi's...what next? they hop on some planes and fly them into buldings?...oh....wait a sec...

gime oil...stroke me...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3303654.ece

"Fouad al-Farhan knew they were coming for him. A few days before Saudi security forces swooped on his offices, he sent a letter to friends telling them he was a wanted man. "They will pick me up any time in the next two weeks," he predicted.

His crime? Writing one of the most widely read blogs in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Farhan, 32, who describes his online mission as "searching for freedom, dignity, justice, equality, public participation and other lost Islamic values", had already broken ground by refusing to hide behind a pen-name as he vented his spleen about the rampant corruption blighting political life. Now he has clocked up another first – the first blogger to be arrested in the kingdom.

The blogger was picked up on 10 December from the offices of his computer company in Jeddah, but it was not until this week that the interior ministry finally confirmed his arrest.

Blogging has seen something of a boom in Saudi Arabia, allowing dissident voices a space in a society were the media is kept on a tight leash and where political parties and public gatherings are banned. There are an estimated 600 bloggers in Saudi Arabia, male and female, conservative and liberal, writing in English and Arabic.

The arrest of Mr Farhan has sent shock waves around internet users in Saudi Arabia. "Although we have seen bloggers in Bahrain, Kuwait and Egypt arrested and jailed, I thought this wouldn't happen here," said Ahmed Al-Omran, 23, a student in Riyadh who blogs under the name Saudi Jeans.

He added: "Saudi Arabia doesn't usually jail journalists (they ban them, but they don't throw them in jail), and I thought those arresting citizens who exercise their right of free speech would be wise enough to choose their battles."

The Saudi interior ministry said Mr Farhan was being held for "interrogation for violating non-security regulations" and declined all further comment. But in the letter he wrote before he was detained, Mr Farhan offers some more specifics: "The issue that caused all of this is because I wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia and they think I'm running a online campaign promoting their issue."

A group of 10 academics were arrested by the authorities last February. They were accused of supporting terrorism but have yet to be charged. Their campaigners say that the terrorism story is a charade and the men are being punished for their political activism."
Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.

http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

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Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • mammasan
    mammasan Posts: 5,656
    What more can you expect from the land of religious oppression, intolerence, and jihad.
    "When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads." - Ron Paul
  • macgyver06
    macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    this is helping my ''saudis are behind all terrorism'' theory
  • callen
    callen Posts: 6,388
    hmmm...and why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia and liberating they're people?
    10-18-2000 Houston, 04-06-2003 Houston, 6-25-2003 Toronto, 10-8-2004 Kissimmee, 9-4-2005 Calgary, 12-3-05 Sao Paulo, 7-2-2006 Denver, 7-22-06 Gorge, 7-23-2006 Gorge, 9-13-2006 Bern, 6-22-2008 DC, 6-24-2008 MSG, 6-25-2008 MSG
  • macgyver06
    macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    callen wrote:
    hmmm...and why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia and liberating they're people?


    they give us lots of money
  • mammasan
    mammasan Posts: 5,656
    macgyver06 wrote:
    this is helping my ''saudis are behind all terrorism'' theory

    Well Saudi Arabia is the birth place of Wahhabism, the conservative form of Islam that jihadist participate in. The Saudi government also builds and funds madrasahs, Islamic schools, where this militant form of Islam is taught and the young poor oppressed men in Saudi Arabia are indoctrinated into this cult of hate and jihad.
    "When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads." - Ron Paul
  • mammasan
    mammasan Posts: 5,656
    callen wrote:
    hmmm...and why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia and liberating they're people?

    Because they own us. We are so dependent on their oil and they also hold, I believe, the second largest amount of US dollars. Saudi Arabia basically has us by the fucking throat and there is very little we can do about it because our government has allowed us to slip into this position.
    "When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads." - Ron Paul
  • macgyver06
    macgyver06 Posts: 2,500
    mammasan wrote:
    Because they own us. We are so dependent on their oil and they also hold, I believe, the second largest amount of US dollars. Saudi Arabia basically has us by the fucking throat and there is very little we can do about it because our government has allowed us to slip into this position.


    but the Bush family is doing very good in terms of wealth because of this.

    im glad for them!! at least someone can benefit!
    my heroes have always been rich
  • callen
    callen Posts: 6,388
    mammasan wrote:
    Because they own us. We are so dependent on their oil and they also hold, I believe, the second largest amount of US dollars. Saudi Arabia basically has us by the fucking throat and there is very little we can do about it because our government has allowed us to slip into this position.
    ah ah it was sarcasm..
    10-18-2000 Houston, 04-06-2003 Houston, 6-25-2003 Toronto, 10-8-2004 Kissimmee, 9-4-2005 Calgary, 12-3-05 Sao Paulo, 7-2-2006 Denver, 7-22-06 Gorge, 7-23-2006 Gorge, 9-13-2006 Bern, 6-22-2008 DC, 6-24-2008 MSG, 6-25-2008 MSG
  • mammasan
    mammasan Posts: 5,656
    macgyver06 wrote:
    but the Bush family is doing very good in terms of wealth because of this.

    im glad for them!! at least someone can benefit!
    my heroes have always been rich

    It's not just the Bush family. We started selling ourselves to Saudi Arabia back in 1945. Over the years we just kept selling more and more all in the name of oil. Everything that is occuring now is the culmination of our 62 year relationship with the Saudies and the Middle East. This is too big to simply be placed at the foot of one President or one administration.
    "When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads." - Ron Paul
  • NMyTree
    NMyTree Posts: 2,374
    Interestingly, our own government through it policies, behavior and laws; is starting to become very similar to that of Saudi Arabia.

    Just take a look at what has happened in the last 8 years. Look at what's been going on with protestors, the media, the laws and this administrations refusal to ever do anything respectful and honorable.

    We are becoming every bit the facist country of Saudi Arabia.

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