Albert Einstein spent most of his life in the fruitless persuit of attempting to come up with a theory that links magnetism with gravity. Now we see the Muslims have done it with a mere turn of a phrase! Please check the following site for the story. Mecca, a no magnetism zone
Category Archives: KSA Saudi Arabia
Another good reason to own a Blackberry
Saudi Arabia joins the UAE in locking out the Blackberry smart phone today. This raises a number of questions for me and answers others. Certainly I am now quite pleased to own a blackberry as it means that its sufficiently secure that totalitarian governments will not allow their citizens to own one, but it makes one wonder…
what sort of deal did Apple make to allow their iphones to be acceptable to governments like Saudi Arabia?
Saudi medicine: Tonics for Djinn
This Saudi clinic serves Jinn and Tonics for the demon possessed.
From Arab News:
EP clinic offers to treat man ‘possessed’ by jinn
By BADEA ABU AL-NAJA | ARAB NEWS
Published: Jul 26, 2010 23:21 Updated: Jul 26, 2010 23:21
MAKKAH: A clinic in the Eastern Province that provides treatment to people possessed by jinns has volunteered to help Turki, a 29-year-old Saudi from Makkah who according to his father is possessed by a female jinn and has, as a result, been chained to a bed for more than six years.
“I’ve spoken to the center and they’ve offered to help my son. They will provide accommodation, food and air tickets for him, his wife, me and his mother who is my ex-wife,” said Turki’s father.
He, however, added that traveling to the Eastern Province is going to be difficult. “If we try to unchain him, he will become violent. Every limb in his body will undergo a radical change and we won’t be able to put him on the plane,” he said.
The father said he has taken Turki to see medical doctors and psychiatrists who have all been unable to diagnose his illness or treat him. “We’ve visited many doctors and none have been able to do anything. They simply gave him sedatives which aren’t useful and that’s why I started taking him to see religious sheikhs, who’ve also been unable to do much,” he said. Continue Reading →
Saudi technology guards against women escaping
JERUSALEMPOST…When women’s rights activist Wajiha Al-Huwaidar flew out of Saudi Arabia last week for a holiday in Italy with her family, she was hoping for a brief respite from what she describes as the ‘gender apartheid kingdom.’
She wasn’t so lucky.
As she left, her husband received an automated SMS text message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informing him that his wife, legally considered his ‘dependant’ under Saudi Arabia’s strict gendered guardianship system, had left the country.
Al-Huwaidar’s husband received the same text, she learned last week, when she had left Saudi Arabia on another recent trip to Germany.
“It is sad how Saudis use technology in a way not intended to be used for,” she told The Media Line. “In Saudi Arabia, technology brings more restrictions and misery! They use it to have more control over people’s lives, especially women.”
“I am an adult woman that has been earning my own income for over a decade now but according to the Saudi government, I am a dependent until the day I die because of my gender,” Al-Huwaidar said. “I’m not sure how it works, but lately we get to be informed through our mobile phones about our bank accounts, sale ads, jobs, donation campaigns and others. I’m sure it’s a new service that the government is using for different purposes. They don’t state which country the dependent left for, but simply state that they did leave.” Continue Reading →
UN Watch and American Dad
As usual, UN Watch does a fantastic job speaking truth to power as was intended for that less-than-august body, the UNHRC. However, the HRC has become the power that needs to be exposed for the corrupt despotic body it is and it takes tiny NGO’s like UN Watch to try and show the world its true nature. Below is the newest example of this. However I can’t help but think that pop-culture really could do so much more to de-ligitemetize aberrations like the HRC like American Dad did so well in the clip right below. Enjoy.
And now,something the UNHRC really needs to hear:
IDF sends gear to Saudi for possible Iranian strike?
H/T Tundra T
Reports: IAF Landed at Saudi Base, US Troops near Iran Border
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Follow Israel news on 
and 
.
and .The Israeli Air Force recently unloaded military equipment at a Saudi Arabia base, a semi-official Iranian news agency claimed Wednesday, while a large American force has massed in Azerbaijan, which is on the northwest border of Iran.
Both reports follow by less than a week the Pentagon’s confirmation that an unusually large American fleet sailed through the Suez Canal Saturday. Several reports stated that an Israeli ship joined the armada.
The Pentagon played down the news, saying the American maneuvers were routine. However, a report by Iran on Wednesday that it has enriched dozens of pounds of 17 per cent enriched uranium serves as a reminder that time is running out to stop Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s Fars News Agency said the Israeli military aircraft landed 10 days ago at the Saudi base near the city of Tabuk, located in northwest Saudi Arabia, one of the closest areas in the oil kingdom to Iran.
Fars said that the Tabuk base will be the central station for an Israeli attack on Iran. It quoted an Islamic news site that a commercial airline passenger said the airport in Tabuk was closed to all other traffic during the alleged Israeli landings. The passenger said that “no reasonable explanation” was given for shutting down the airport and those passengers were compensated financially and booked in four-star hotels. Continue Reading →
Tit for tat: Saudi breast-feeding revolt
From The National Post
Saudi women threaten breast-feeding revolt
Kelly McParland June 23, 2010 – 9:51 am
Hassan Ammar / AFP / Getty Images
The world’s strangest revolt may soon see Saudi women burning their breast pumps.
The Los Angeles Times ran this story originally, and you’re going to have to read it there, because it’s not possible to summarize in any manner that makes sense, as far as I can see.
But the gist is this: One of those clerics we’re always hearing about has issued a fatwa that urges Saudi women to share their breast milk with foreigners, because it would provide a means to bypass a stricture against the mixing of the sexes. Breastfeeding would create a familial bond, even a symbolic one, thus making the mingling kosh…well, let’s call it acceptable.
I know, I know: “Whaaaa?”
But strange as that is, it’s just the start. The real story is that Saudi women have seized on the fatwa as a way to campaign against a ban that prevents them from driving cars. According to the Times, “If they’re not granted the right to drive, the women are threatening to breastfeed their drivers to establish a symbolic maternal bond.”
You can’t make this stuff up folks.
National Post
Saudi-style justice: Men, women flogged and jailed for talking at party
From YNet News
Judicial officials say a Saudi court has convicted four women and 11 men for mingling at a party and sentenced them to flogging and prison terms.
The men, who are between 30 and 40 years old, and three of the women, who are under the age of 30, were sentenced to an unspecified number of lashes and one or two year prison terms each.
The fourth woman, a minor, was sentenced to 80 lashes and was not sent to prison.
The ruling was handed down on Tuesday at a court in the northern town of Ha’il.
The officials say the police saw the group partying until dawn last month. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam that prohibits unrelated men and women from mingling.
Saudi Clerics Advocate Adult Breast-Feeding
h/t Lili Gobi
From AOL news:
(June 5) — Women in Saudi Arabia should give their breast milk to male colleagues and acquaintances in order to avoid breaking strict Islamic law forbidding mixing between the sexes, two powerful Saudi clerics have said. They are at odds, however, over precisely how the milk should be conveyed.
A fatwa issued recently about adult breast-feeding to establish “maternal relations” and preclude the possibility of sexual contact has resulted in a week’s worth of newspaper headlines in Saudi Arabia. Some have found the debate so bizarre that they’re calling for stricter regulations about how and when fatwas should be issued.
Sheikh Al Obeikan, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, set off a firestorm of controversy recently when he said on TV that women who come into regular contact with men who aren’t related to them ought to give them their breast milk so they will be considered relatives.
“The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman,” Al Obeikan said, according to Gulf News. “He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam’s rules about mixing.”
Obeikan said the fatwa applied to men who live in the same house or come into contact with women on a regular basis, except for drivers.
Al Obeikan, who made the statement after being asked on TV about a 2007 fatwa issued by an Egyptian scholar about adult breast-feeding, said that the breast milk ought to be pumped out and given to men in a glass.
But his remarks were followed by an announcement by another high-profile sheik, Abi Ishaq Al Huwaini, who said that men should suckle the breast milk directly from a woman’s breast.
Shortly after the two sheiks weighed in on the matter, a bus driver in the country’s Eastern Region reportedly told one of the female teachers whom he drives regularly that he wanted to suckle milk from her breast. The teacher has threaten to file a lawsuit against him. Continue Reading →
Saudi Arabia: Gives Israel Space To Attack Iranian Nuclear Sites
A rather stunning little SITREP from STRATFOR:
This one sitrep basically justifies the expense I think! Chances are this is just a signal to Iran but still, its quite unexpected.
June 12, 2010
Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times reported June 12. Defense sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow strip of its airspace in the north of the country to diminish the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass safely, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defense systems not activated.
Saudi’s on MTV’s ‘True Life’ sued, face punishment for ‘openly declaring sin’
From The National Post
I want my ‘openly declaring sin’ MTV!
Ali Jarekji/Reuters file photo
By Katherine Laidlaw June 1, 2010 – 7:30 pm
Three Saudi youths (none pictured here) who will appear on an upcoming episode of MTV’s reality show True Life could face punishments including prison and lashing for their on-air discussion of wanting more freedoms in their homeland. One girl, Fatima, tried to open a business selling cloaks in colours other than black.
Three Saudi youth may face punishment for appearing on the MTV reality show True Life to talk about ways they’re resisting the country’s strict morality, after the Saudi religious police filed a lawsuit against them for the crime of “openly declaring sin.”
The police are trying to drag the three into court and, if successful, charge them. The teens starred in an episode of the MTV documentary series, which originally aired in Saudi Arabia on May 24, called “Resist the Power! Saudi Arabia.” The program followed three characters, identified only by their first names: Aziz, who tries to meet his girlfriend for a date; Fatima, who tries to open a business selling cloaks in colours other than black; and Ahmad, who thinks women should be able to run for and hold elected office.
On the show, Aziz says, “We are not free to live as we like,” and describes the difficulty he experiences when trying to go on dates in Jeddah with his girlfriend.
An officer at the Jeddah court said it would take at least a week to decide whether to proceed to trial.
The Saudi judiciary system, based on an austere reading of Islamic sharia law, metes out harsh punishments for morality offences, sometimes including lashes with a whip and years of imprisonment. Last year, a Saudi named Mazen Abdul-Jawad was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and five years in prison for discussing his sexual affairs on a show televised by the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation.
“It will be very difficult to stop the religious clockwork once this gets to court,” a Saudi lawyer told Reuters yesterday. The True Life subjects “may face harsh sanctions like those dealt to Abdul-Jawad.”
–True Life “Resist the Power! Saudi Arabia” will air in Canada on July 12 at 3 p.m. ET on MTV2. Click here for more details. mtv.ca/tvshows/true-life for more information.
with files from Reuters
Saudi women protest rape of children in KSA
This is the first video I have seen by Saudis protesting the lack of person status women have in the KSA. Very encouraging, even if they kep the protest very tame and focus on child ‘marriage.’
Saudi woman beats up religious police officer who stopped her for walking with a man
From The Daily Mail
Virtue: A Saudi woman makes sure she is properly covered up while in a shopping mall (file photo). An unidentified Saudi woman is being hailed a hero after beating up a virtue cop who stopped her for walking with a man
When a Saudi religious policeman questioned a young couple walking together in an amusement park he got a painful surprise – when the woman suddenly attacked him.
The officer, from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, asked the pair to confirm their identities and relationship to one another.
Unmarried men and women are barred from mixing under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic rules. Continue Reading →
Nazia Quazi reaches freedom in Dubai
Nazia Quazi reaches freedom in Dubai
???
After being held in Saudi Arabia for three years, Nazia Quazi will finally be free of her father’s control.
Photograph by: Handout photo, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — As of Monday morning, Nazia Quazi is free of her father’s control.
The young Muslim woman, who is a Canadian citizen and studied at the University of Ottawa, had been trapped in the Saudi Arabian capital for the past three years under the country’s male guardianship system that sees fathers speak on behalf of their unmarried daughters.
Her father refused to let the 24-year-old Quazi leave the country, allegedly because he didn’t approve of her boyfriend, Bjorn Singhal, whom she met in Ottawa.
Last night, Singhal, who had been communicating with her via text messages, reported that Quazi boarded a plane bound for Dubai, which was rolling away from the terminal when she had to turn off her phone. It landed in Dubai less than two hours later.
As soon as she was in the air, she was officially out of the reach of the male guardianship system and therefore free to make her own choices about where she lives and who she spends time with. The plan, Singhal said, is for them to marry in Dubai on Wednesday.
Quazi’s mother, who lives in Ottawa, travelled to Riyadh with her son last week, reportedly to try to convince her husband to let their daughter leave and be with her boyfriend.
It would seem she was successful as they all traveled to Dubai on Sunday night with Quazi for the wedding.
Singhal’s mother, who lives in Montreal, also travelled to Dubai on Sunday, to be there for her son’s wedding.
Singhal said the plan was to go to the high court and get married while also getting “the necessary paperwork done for Nazia to be with me legally.” Continue Reading →
Ottawa man returns medal to Saudis to protest treatment of trapped woman
Below, a story about a true hero, and champion for justice.
From The Montreal Gazette:
By Jennifer Campbell, The Ottawa Citizen April 19, 2010
Mark Brousseau hopes some of his 700 shipmates will return their Liberation of Kuwait medals as well.
Photograph by: Bryanna Bradley, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — A retired naval officer from Ottawa is giving back a medal of honour in protest of the Saudi government’s treatment of a Canadian citizen.
And he hopes others will follow suit.
Mark Brousseau, who served on HMCS Athabaskan in the early 1990s during the first Gulf war, received the Liberation of Kuwait medal from the government of Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday morning, he’ll head to the Saudi embassy in Ottawa to return it to the ambassador to protest the country’s male guardianship system that has kept 24-year-old Canadian Nazia Quazi in the country against her will.
The Muslim woman, whose mother and brother live in Ottawa, went to Saudi three years ago to visit her father and to do the Umrah, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
But once she arrived, her father, whom she claims doesn’t approve of her boyfriend, took her travel documentation and identification and has refused to let her leave the country. In Saudi Arabia, the male guardianship system says that fathers must make decisions for their unmarried daughters. Quazi lives in housing provided by her employer, and says her father, whom she alleges has beaten her in the past, is becoming increasingly violent and abusive. MPs Paul Dewar and Bob Rae have called for action. Deepak Obhrai, minister of state for foreign affairs, says the government is in contact with Saudi officials, but can’t do much because of the country’s rules. Continue Reading →