Saudis slowly opening dialogue about rights

Riyadh: Seated at an enormous white desk four floors above King Fahd Road's swiftly moving morning traffic, Turki Al Sudairy dialled the number of a deeply worried woman.

"She was in very bad shape when she called me," Sudairy related, describing Fatima Bishri as distraught because she had not heard from her husband since his arrest for allegedly attempting to join the Iraqi insurgency.

When Fatima answered, Sudairy soothingly assured her that he had spoken with prison officials, who approved a call, and that she would hear from her husband within hours. He hung up, noting that "she sounds better now."

Delivering such small consolations is part of Sudairy's job as president of Saudi Arabia's two-year-old Human Rights Commission. Formed by a royal decree of King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, the 24-member commission is a governmental body charged with monitoring the kingdom's compliance with human rights standards.

Its creation was part of the monarch's reformist agenda. They cite increased discussion in the media and private blogs of such issues as child marriage, domestic violence, and treatment of foreign labourers.

"The big achievement is that it's no longer taboo to talk about human rights," one Saudi says privately.

HRW reports

Nevertheless, the release on Tuesday of two reports by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) underscores human rights issues in Saudi society. Based on what the rights group calls "hundreds of interviews" with Saudi officials, former detainees, and their families, the reports describe cases of long detention without charges or trial, arrests and lack of legal counsel.

For the first time, representatives of several Saudi government ministries sat down with HRW researchers to discuss drafts of the reports and explain their actions. The meetings took place earlier this month in what was HRW's third official visit to Saudi Arabia since January 2003, according to HRW researcher Christophe Wilcke.

"It's encouraging that many [ministries] showed up," says Wilcke. But the group "didn't have the detailed discussions we'd hoped to have," because most government representatives hadn't read the reports in advance.

Much work remains

Ebrahim Al Mugaiteeb, founder of the non-governmental Human Rights First Society and an activist in the eastern city of Damman, praised the commission's creation, adding that "the government listens [to it]."

But he laments that the agency's mandate is not implemented. "If the mandate of the commission was applied in Saudi Arabia," he says, "Saudis would be the happiest people on earth."

Mugaiteeb notes that his fellow citizens still cannot express themselves freely without fear of reprisal, citing the recent sentences of four and six months given, respectively, to the politically active brothers Abdullah and Eisa Al Hamid, and the detention since December of blogger Fouad Al Farhan.

Sudairy, a retired government employee who got his BA in political science in the United States, acknowledges that there is much work to be done to forge an enduring culture of human rights awareness.

Obstacle

One major obstacle, he says, is public resistance to the term "human rights" itself, which is widely perceived as a Western cultural concept being foisted on Saudi Arabia.

Part of the commission's job, he adds, is to educate Saudis. "The first thing we are trying to do is to raise the awareness of the human rights culture," he says. "Fortunately, Islam and Islamic teachings are human rights-directed in a very clear and objective way. But sometimes as life goes on ... individuals inside the government [or] outside the government don't follow up to what's really demanded of us by our religion."

Sudairy says the commission has designed a public campaign for television, radio, and newspapers explaining how human rights are Islamic values. The plan is awaiting approval by the king.

In two years of operation, the commission has handled "about 16,000 pieces of mail, between incoming and outgoing, which means there is a lot of activity going on just in letter-writing," Sudairy says. It has received "over 100" foreign delegations, and members have "visited many jails and we are going to visit more." King Abdullah has ordered all ministries to reply to commission inquires within three weeks, Sudairy says.

If the mandate of the commission was applied in Saudi Arabia, Saudis would be the happiest people on earth."

Ebrahim Al Mugaiteeb, Founder of non-governmental Human Rights First Society