Mmm: Saudi Arabia’s interior minister yesterday accepted undisclosed damages from a British newspaper for a false story claiming that he had ordered police chiefs in the kingdom “to shoot and kill unarmed demonstrators without mercy”. The Independent newspaper and its Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk, offered “sincere apologies” at the high court in London to…
Showing all posts tagged Saudi Arabia
The Blogging Revolution updated post the Arab revolutions
In 2008 my second book, The Blogging Revolution, was released. It told the story of the internet in repressive regimes. Now, post the Arab uprisings, I’ve updated the title and it’s been released globally this week as an e-book via Melbourne University Press:
Obama success; US more hated in Arab world than during Bush
What does Washington expect when Israel is allowed to brutalise the Palestinians, drone attacks are killing countless civilians and Arab dictatorships are warmly embraced? The hope that the Arab world had not long ago put in the United States and President Obama has all but evaporated. Two and a half years after Obama came to…
Why cultural boycott is legitimate weapon in face of repression
What weapons for an occupied people? A population facing repression? Cultural, academic and economic boycotts are important tools and must be utilised. I argued this in a recent essay in Overland in relation to Sri Lanka and Palestine. This post on Mondoweiss shows that the debate is global and opponents of boycotts have fewer arguments…
How our good friends Saudi Arabia back terrorism
The elephant in the room for decades. We sell them weapons, indulge their fundamentalism and allow gender apartheid without comment. The moral bankruptcy of Western foreign policy could almost be summarised through its relationship with Saudi Arabia alone. Here’s a fascinating new feature in Vanity Fair about the regime’s ties to the 9/11 hijackers: In…
US official; we love the internet (as long as views approved by State Dept)
Let me get this straight. A web evangelist, working for the US government, admires the ability of the internet to assist Arab revolutions and compares its power to Che Guevera, a man the establishment regards as a terrorist. I guess backing real freedom in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is a bridge too far for this…
US “intelligence” acknowledge that Arab Spring has left them clueless
A rather startling Newsweek feature that shows just how shallow the US understanding of the Middle East has been for decades. Working with tyrants and torturers and murderers, in the name of fighting “terrorism”, has meant that the overthrow of such figures in the last six months has resulted in US eyes and ears becoming…
We buy oil from Saudi regime and they hate women
Our addiction to the black gold has made us morally complicit in horrific discrimination. Farzaneh Milani writes in the New York Times: The Arab Spring is inching its way into Saudi Arabia — in the cars of fully veiled drivers. On the surface, when a group of Saudi women used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to…
Global dissidents may not want US openly backing them
Promoting web freedom is a noble idea, especially since so many autocratic regimes and Western multinationals are working together to stop citizens accessing the glories of information on the internet. But this idea is full of potential problems (via the New York Times), not least because Washington has a shocking record of supporting dictatorships at…
May Saudi stand-up comedy bring down the nation’s brutes
Amazing New York Times feature on the US backed dictatorship of Saudi Arabia and the brave souls challenging one of the most bigoted and oppressive regimes on earth: You know you are attending a Saudi Arabian comedy night when the sprawling performance tent is pitched 50 miles out into the desert to avoid the morals…