Originally a comment by lorn on Saudi Arabia has expressed “surprise and dismay”.

Saudi Arabia is well acquainted with duplicity. Many publicly devout men have a wet bar, mistresses, and engage in decidedly unislamic activities behind closed doors. They also are quite willing to lavish huge sums of money to smooth over discrepancies and conflicts.

As a matter of policy they have a very generous welfare state to help smooth things out.

I had a job offer there and the list of things allowed in the contractors’ compound was slightly more libertine than what is allowed in most US red light districts. The understanding was that none of this was done, or spoken of, in public and taking it … Read the rest

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Max Fisher provides answers to nine basic questions about Saud-family Arabia.

Like, what is it.

Saudi Arabia is a fundamentalist Islamist dictatorship, an ultra-wealthy oil economy, and perhaps the most powerful country in the Middle East. It is a very young country in a very old part of the world. It formed in 1932, when a tribal leader named Abdulaziz al-Saud conquered an area three times the size of Texas and then named it after himself. He and his first generation of sons have ruled Saudi Arabia ever since.

The way that Abdulaziz al-Saud came to conquer and unify this country is crucial for understanding it: by allying with a fiercely conservative group of Islamist fundamentalists known as the

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I’m feeling sick now.

From the International Business Times –

A Saudi preacher accused of raping, torturing and killing his five-year-old daughter, has reportedly been released from custody after agreeing to pay “blood money”.

Fayhan al-Ghamdi was sentenced to eight years in prison and 800 lashes in 2013.

The court also ordered al-Ghamdi to pay his ex-wife, the girl’s mother, one million riyals ($270,000) in “blood money”.

According to some reports, al-Ghamdi had suspected his daughter had lost her virginity and had tortured her accordingly.

Al-Ghamdi’s daughter Lama suffered multiple injuries including a crushed skull, broken back, broken ribs, a broken left arm and extensive bruising and burns.

It was reported that al-Ghamdi had suspected his daughter of losing her

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Saudi Arabia is also (surprise surprise) harsh and bossy about Ramadan even for people who have the bad taste to be not Muslim.

The Interior Ministry has warned that it would deport non-Muslim expatriates found eating and drinking in public during Ramadan.

“Non-Muslim expatriates should respect the feelings of Muslims by not eating, drinking or smoking in public places such as streets and workplaces. They should not think that they are exempted from this because they are followers of other faiths,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry reminded workers that their contracts stipulate that they should respect Islam’s rituals and practices, including the month of fasting.

The ministry warned that it would deport those who break the

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Another new wrinkle in the project to make sure that women are kept under ferocious control at all times no matter what – Saudi Arabia has now arranged things so that when a woman leaves Saudi Arabia, her male “guardian” gets a test message saying “Hey! Did you know your slut has crossed the border?”

Since last week, Saudi women’s male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together.

Manal al-Sherif, who became the symbol of a campaign launched last year urging Saudi women to defy a driving ban, began spreading the information on Twitter, after she was alerted by a couple.

The husband,

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Ikea did, for the version of its catalogue that goes to Saudi Arabia.

So the familiar catalogue that shows a familiar world of people using furniture becomes a bizarro catalogue that shows a bizarro world that shows not people using furniture but just men and boys.

The removal of women from the pages of the Saudi edition, including a young girl who was pictured studying at her desk, has prompted a strong response from Swedes, who pride themselves on egalitarian policies and a narrow gender gap.

“You can’t remove or airbrush women out of reality. If Saudi Arabia does not allow women to be seen or heard, or to work, they are letting half their intellectual capital go to

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So, Nawwaf, tell us why you think women should not drive – or rather, tell us why you think “we” should not “let” “them” drive.

If you start now to let women drive, let them go wherever they want, let them do whatever they want, we will be in the same position some day. Then Saudi Arabia will be like New York.

It’s not good for some girl to show her body, wear very short skirts. This
is not about Saudi Arabia, it’s about Islam. We’ve got a generation who were
raised watching Gossip Girls and other series. They only want to be
like that, dress like that, drive like that. It’s not about need.

Now it’s driving. After five

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)