SHAFAQNA Exclusive: Saudi Lawyer says the rules in Saudi Arabia are not worth the paper written on them
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Abdulaziz Al-Hesan the Saudi lawyer said the lawyers in his country cannot carry out their duties and defend their clients. He stressed that lawyers are frustrated when the written laws of the country are not followed. He referred to the case of one of his clients called Saleh Al-Ashwan who has been detained for a month but he is not allowed to meet his lawyer. In addition his lawyer announced that he has not been allowed to review his client’s file which proves that laws are not followed in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi lawyer explained the way his client was arrested by saying that when he was returning from the morning prayers the security forces detained him. According to Saudi laws an accused can be arrested at the scene of the crime. Al-Hesan asked if his client was accused of attending morning prayers. According to Al-Awamieh news association, in his final remarks, the Saudi lawyer said that the lawyers in his country cannot defend their clients freely and the laws of the country are not worth the paper written on them.
SHAFAQNA Exclusive: Saudi cleric says prophet (PBUH) did not allocate a day for holiday or rest
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Sheikh Qais bin Mohammad Al-Mubarak a member of Saudi grand ulamas committee told Al-Riadh newspaper that Prophet of Islam (PBUH) did not allocate Friday or any other day for holiday or rest. He added that people can choose a day of the week for rest and holiday. Sheikh Qais explained that working after Friday prayers is allowed and some ulamas believe that based on Quran it is advisable to go to work on Friday but not before the sermon and call to prayers. This Saudi cleric said Friday is blessing from Allah whom allocated it for prayers and work.
SHAFAQNA Exclusive: New Saudi Fatwas, Friday and Saturday holidays are Haram
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Saleh Alfawzan a member of Saudi ulamas committee declared that due to similarities between Friday and Saturday holidays with Jewish and Christian holidays, therefore these holidays are Haram (forbidden). According to Al-Nakheel News Network Sheikh Alfawzan explained that Jews and Christians are cursed by God and they must not be followed. Fahad bin moa’tad Al-Hamd deputy head of Saudi consultative parliament stressed that no agreement has been reached regarding changing holidays to Thursday and Friday instead of Friday and Saturday. However he said that this matter is being reviewed and the result will be announced later on.
SHAFAQNA Exclusive: Wahhabi cleric put on trial for insult in Saudi Arabia
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A Saudi court started the case of a Wahhabi cleric for composing a poet and placing it on Twitter which is alleged to insult a member of Saudi consultative parliament. The case is brought to court by Isa Al-Qaith against Sheikh Mohammad Al-Arifi who allegedly insulted him on the Twitter. The trial is now scheduled for June 2013. Al-Qaith says the poem on Twitter is an internet crime with punishment of one year prison sentence together with 133000 dollar fine.
The other accusation of temporary marriage is counted as breach of private limits with punishment of five year prison term together with 800000 dollar fine. The Saudi judicial sources say Sheikh Arifi who has lots of followers on Twitter did not attend the hearings but his lawyers were present. The judge expelled all reporters from the court. According to Lebanon’s Al-Safir Newspaper, Arifi is a controversial Wahhabi cleric and his poem on Twitter accused Al-Qaith of being secular.
SHAFAQNA Exclusive: Al-Sharq human rights Centre asked for saving Sheikh Nomer from execution by Saudis
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The statement issued by the Al-Sharq human rights Centre, called for urgent action to save Sheikh Nomer from execution by Saudi regime. The Centre called jailing of Sheikh Nomer as barbaric by Saudi Arabia and against all human rights charters including the Arab human rights charter which stresses the need for protection of freedom of speech and dignity of the individuals. The statement also mentions that Sheikh Nomer has been under barbaric tortures without having access to medical facilities. The Al-Sharq human rights Centre asked for urgent measures to show the truth behind vicious acts by Saudi Arabia to the world. According to Al-Ahd News Network, in last June, Saudi security forces arrested the Shia scholar, Sheikh Nomer after wounding him by bullets in Al-Awamieh a district of Al-qatif.
SHAFAQNA Exclusive: Wahhabi cleric called for murder of Shia women and children
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Mohammad bin Saud form Saudi Sharia University in his page in a social site called ‘Saad Aldarihem’ and on the twitter invited the Iraqi insurgents to murder Shia women and children in order to cause more fear in Iraqi society. Aldarihem wrote if the Iraqi insurgents could have increased the murders of women and children surely the Iraqi Shias would have been more scared of them. Following the publication of these writings by the Saudi Arabian Wahhabi cleric in Twitter, the flood of criticism followed and some even called him a criminal.
In a response to Aldarihem, Saud Kateb from Almadina Newspaper wrote, I take Allah as witness that those who insult Islam more than Jews, Christians and other groups are these extremists who invite to murder and bloodsheds. Abdullah bin Bakhit from Akkaz Newspaer wrote, will this person go free without a trial? Should we not be aware that these terrorists live in our country? Khalimeh Mozzafar from Alwatan Newspaper asked for the expulsion of this Wahhabi from university and his trial. He also asked the Saudi Interior Ministry to put Aldarihem on trial and said these thoughts lead to terrorism and murders in the name of Islam. He also wrote that Mohammad bin Saud is a criminal and must be expled from the Sharia University.
Top Saudi Mufti Fatwa's Permits Destroying Islamic Sites in Saudi Arabia
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Bin Abdullah Al-Sheikh, whose Fatwa has paved the way for destruction of historical Islamic remnants in the holy city of Makkah says it is not only permitted but necessary (!).
Saudi authorities try to justify destruction of Islamic and historical sites by saying that it is needed in order to develop religious tourism in the country.
Two Saudi scholars, however, underlined the need for preserving the sites and condemned any move to destroy them.
Saudi activists in social networks have also voiced objection to the Fatwa and called on the Mufti to reconsider his edict, Ba’ab news agency reports.
Issam Mudir, wrote in Twitter that the Islamic heritage sites belong to all Muslims and no one has the right to destroy them.
He urged the authorities to turn the sites into museums and thus boost the country’s religious tourism industry. -www.shafaqna.com/English
Source:abna
SHAFAQNA Exclusive: We welcome talks with Hezbollah, says Saudi ambassador to Lebanon
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Ali Awaz Aseeri, the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon said since his arrival to the country he has had contacts with all political groups. He added that he has continued connections with Hezbollah in various forms and the differences of opinion between two sides are not troublesome. He stressed that the shared views between Hezbollah and Saudi embassy are more than the differences.
The Saudi envoy pointed to friendly contacts with Hezbollah and said he has met with Sheikh Naeem Ghasem. Aseeri emphasised that the doors are open for discussions and we always welcome talks with Hezbollah. He said the common points between us and Hezbollah is brotherhood and concerns for Lebanon. According to Al-Safir Newspaper, the Saudi ambassador in Lebanon in response to a question regarding the resistance’s arms said, that is an internal issue for Lebanon.
The Saudi marathon man
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- A twenty-year-old man who had been watching the Boston Marathon had his body torn into by the force of a bomb. He wasn’t alone; a hundred and seventy-six people were injured and three were killed. But he was the only one who, while in the hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in “a startling show of force,” as his fellow-tenants described it to the Boston Herald, with a “phalanx” of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for five hours (“I was scared”) before coming out to say that he didn’t think his friend was someone who’d plant a bomb—that he was a nice guy who liked sports. “Let me go to school, dude,” the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadn’t been living with a killer.
Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured man’s name tweeted out, attached to the word “suspect”? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction—so was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. “Exhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,” President Obama said. “They helped one another, consoled one another,” Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said. In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then “tackled” him, bringing him down. People thought he looked suspicious.
What made them suspect him? He was running—so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb—as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead—a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?
What happened next didn’t take long. “Investigators have a suspect—a Saudi Arabian national—in the horrific Boston Marathon bombings, The Post has learned.” That’s the New York Post, which went on to cite Fox News. The “Saudi suspect”—still faceless—suddenly gave anxieties a form. He was said to be in custody; or maybe his hospital bed was being guarded. The Boston police, who weren’t saying much of anything, disputed the report—sort of. “Honestly, I don’t know where they’re getting their information from, but it didn’t come from us,” a police spokesman told TPM. But were they talking to someone? Maybe. “Person of interest” became a phrase of both avoidance and insinuation. On the Atlas Shrugs Web site, there was a note that his name in Arabic meant “sword.” At an evening press conference, Ed Davis, the police commissioner, said that no suspect was in custody. But that was about when the dogs were in the apartment building in Revere—an inquiry that was seized on by some as, if not an indictment, at least a vindication of their suspicions.
“There must be enough evidence to keep him there,” Andrew Napolitano said on “Fox and Friends”—“there” being the hospital. “They must be learning information which is of a suspicious nature,” Steve Doocy interjected. “If he was clearly innocent, would they have been able to search his house?” Napolitano thought that a judge would take any reason at a moment like this, but there had to be “something”—maybe he appeared “deceitful.” As Mediaite pointed out, Megyn Kelly put a slight break on it (as she has been known to do) by asking if there might have been some “racial profiling,” but then, after a round of speculation about his visa (Napolitano: “Was he a real student, or was that a front?”), she asked, “What’s the story on his ability to lawyer up?”
By Tuesday afternoon, the fever had broken. Report after report said that he was a witness, not a suspect. “He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” a “U.S. official” told CNN. (So were a lot of people at the marathon.) Even Fox News reported that he’d been “ruled out.” At a press conference, Governor Deval Patrick spoke, not so obliquely, about being careful not to treat “categories of people in uncharitable ways.”
We don’t know yet who did this. “The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” Richard Deslauriers of the F.B.I. said early Tuesday evening. In a minute, with a claim of responsibility, our expectations could be scrambled. The bombing could, for all we know, be the work of a Saudi man—or an American or an Icelandic or a person from any nation you can think of. It still won’t mean that this Saudi man can be treated the way he was, or that people who love him might have had to find out that a bomb had hit him when his name popped up on the Web as a suspect in custody. It is at these moments that we need to be most careful, not least.
It might be comforting to think of this as a blip, an aberration, something that will be forgotten tomorrow—if not by this young man. There are people at Guanátanmo who have also been cleared by our own government, and are still there. A new report on the legacy of torture after 9/11, released Tuesday, is a well-timed admonition. The F.B.I. said that they would “go to the ends of the earth” to get the Boston perpetrators. One wants them to be able to go with their heads held high.
“If you want to know who we are, what America is, how we respond to evil—that’s it. Selflessly. Compassionately. Unafraid,” President Obama said. That was mostly true on Monday; a terrible day, when an eight-year-old boy was killed, his sister maimed, two others dead, and many more in critical condition. And yet, when there was so much to fear that we were so brave about, there was panic about a wounded man barely out of his teens who needed help. We get so close to all that Obama described. What’s missing? Is it humility?
Saudi prince makes case for women drivers
SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has indicated support of allowing women there to drive.
He said on Sunday that if women were allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, it would help the kingdom's campaign to cut down on the number of foreign workers.
Saudi Arabia follows an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam and bans women from driving.
"The question of allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia will save more than 500,000 jobs in addition to the social and economic benefits," the prince wrote Sunday on his Twitter account.
Thousands of foreign workers have been fired from their jobs and then deported, part of a government campaign against foreigners who illegally reside and work in the kingdom.
Last week King Abdullah gave workers three months to try to legalise their presence. There are more than eight million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia.
