ACPRA Directs Two Questions to the Saudi Minister of Interior (Prince Naif Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud)
Why did the Ministry of Interior (MOI) prevent Riyadh’s public sit-in that demands lifting Gaza blockade?!
First: We declare our solidarity with the Gaza aid flotilla, thank Turkey, and demand ending Gaza blockade.
Second: We ask the Saudi Minister of Interior: why did you deprive the people of the rights for peaceful assembly and demonstration?,
By answering the above question, don’t you know that you may have answered the following important question: Why is it that most of those involved in international terrorism are Saudis?
On Saturday, June 5th 2010, sixty seven Saudi human rights activists had submitted a petition to the office of the minister of interior, Prince Naif Bin Abdulaziz, and his assistant for the security affairs, Prince Mohammed Bin Naif. In that petition, they demanded a permission to hold a public sit-in to sympathized with the Gaza aid flotilla and to demand an end to Gaza blockade, the sit-in was supposed to be held on Thursday June 10th 2010, in Riyadh . On Monday, June 7th 2010, the Ministry of Interior’s spokesman announced that: “we need to find out whether the request for the sit-in permission has been received.” The designated date and time for the proposed sit-in came and went with no answer from the Ministry of Interior (MOI). The sit-in organizers post a statement on the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) website (www.ksarights.org) announcing the cancellation of the event because the permission was not granted by the MOI.
The people of Saudi Arabia should have publicly expressed their feelings, because silence means one of two things:
Either the people in this country are without feelings, separated from the world in which they live in, and oblivious to human sufferings.
Or that the government denies them their rights, in violation of the concept of a pledge of allegiance, which derives from the principle that the nation is authorized to save both: the faith and the state. This mainly why the people must be guardians over the government, i.e., rulers and governors are merely agents of the people (which is what expressed in political science as the modern social contract: the power of the people).
The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) had hoped that MOI licensed a public sit-in, maybe as a window dressing. So the whole world, that expressed solidarity with Gaza aid flotilla, do not realize that the Saudis, alone among all members of the United-Nations countries, are deprived of their civil and political rights. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is the only country in this world that operates without a written constitution.
First: Some of the paragraphs mentioned in the statement published by those who demanded the public sit-in: on solidarity with the Gaza aid flotilla, and the demand to end Gaza blockade:
(1) Thanks and condolences:
Many thanks are due to the Turkish people and the government of Turkey, who are strong supporters of Palestinians’ causes. We offer our deepest condolences for their nine martyrs who sacrificed their lives so the whole world knows the brutality, repression, and aggression of the state of Israel. We declare our solidarity with the Turkish people and their government, because they are the ones who paid the highest price in confronting this crime. The Turkish people showed, by the evidence and proof, the following facts:
(a) The issue of Palestine doesn’t only belong to the Arab, but belongs to the Muslims as well.
(b) The Arabs in their conflict with Israel should not dispense the major neighboring countries such as Iran and Turkey.
(c) The world is changing little by little, but not all the people are aware of the change and the transition.
There are countries, by confronting the challenges, create opportunities, and there are countries that seize the opportunities.
Turkey is sick and tired of the policies of the Arab rulers and the West, which is biased to the Zionists without a rationale or a strategy. Turkey has become inpatient of incurring losses in the Arab and Islamic world, it realized that Western governments- acting without a strategic vision- lost their weight when they immersed in the mud of Iraq and Afghanistan. Turkey has just realized that Iran accomplished tremendously by resistance rather than acquiescence, Turkey then decided to jump out of the sinking boat.
Both (Turkey and Iran) aspire for regional roles, but the Iranian success motivated the Turks for disengagement of the West. They realized What were the benefits had the Shah of Iran acquired when he had become the Gulf policeman and a close ally of Israel. What Turkey reaped when participated with the NATO in Afghanistan quagmire, its alliance with Israel, and its weak relation with the Arab world.
(d) The Palestinians realized that “a friend in need is a friend indeed”:
The people, of all religions and nations, showed solidarity in exposing ugliness of the state of Israel. The country that led the campaign is Turkey, and the Zionists targeted Turkey and this is why most of the martyrs were from Turkey because Israel bears malice not only against Iran but also against Turkey. This requires the Arabs to disengage from States that protect the racist state of Israel until they change their political stance. Arab countries must put the Palestinian cause at the center of the their international relations, strengthen the link with the Islamic countries like Turkey and Iran, and improve ties with all countries that support the Palestinian rights.
(2) We demand the West to look justly at the Palestinian issues:
The Zionist elements (e.g., the American Neocons) want to drag the West into a conflict with the Arabs and Muslims, for which the West starts losing its credibility slowly because of its cover up of the crimes committed by the racist Zionist regime. By their unlimited support to Israel, the West loses its ally every year, and Western extremists are not aware that the world has begun to turn in the fields of information, communication, media, democracy , and human rights.
That is why Turkey has become the most effective Islamic country to stand by Gaza, Hamas, and Iran. what then happened? It is a problem in Washington, since extremists in the Republican party incited Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in the early 1980s, and again the same extremists voted, by a simple majority, on the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
As Helen Thomas, the former dean of the White House Press Corps, who said: that Israelis “to get the hell out of Palestine”, “They must go home to Germany, Poland, America, and everywhere else”, and continued “remember these people [Palestinians] are occupied, and it’s their land, not Germany, not Poland.”
For how long will the Europeans and Americans remain prisoners of the racist Zionist regime, and keep supporting its arrogance, dreams, and follies.
Until when they drag the UN Security Council to tempt the Zionists to commit more crimes. For how long the governments of United States of America, the European countries, and all the countries supporting the racist regime of Israel grapple with the costly bill to protect this criminal racist regime. We also wonder for what reasons do these countries continue to protect Israel from exposure to international sanctions; in fact by their supports to Israel, these Western countries have instead exposed themselves and failed to convince the world.
(3) The beginning of an end to the apartheid Zionist regime:
Israel has succeeded for the past sixty years to cover up its crimes, and only recently since its Gaza blockade have international public opinions changed. Particularly in EU countries, where the people have just started to notice lies, arrogance, crimes of the Zionist state.
If Gaza aid flotilla has not achieved its announced target: the delivery of aid to the people of Gaza. The flotilla, however, achieved even the greater goal by exposing the rotten racist Zionist regime and revealing its ugly face.
The racist Zionist regime is no longer capable of covering up its consecutive crimes:
Deir Yassin massacre
Qana massacre
Slaughtering of women, children and elders in Gaza
Starving the people of Gaza
Prevention of Food and Drug since the Gaza blockade
Blood of the free draws victory. if Israel had taken away the vessels without blood, this victory wouldn’t have been achieved; however, by only a dozen martyrs this enormous victory had been realized.
As if the racist Zionist regime has been entrapped by Turkey. By Turkey’s sagacity and courage, Israel was lured to this moral failure to destroy its reputation, and was forced to offer free gifts to its opponents.
Israel’s story did not convince anyone, even its friends were unable to justify its heinous lies. Israel has lost the media battle. Israel has become similar to the white racism in South Africa: a self-destructive, through high prices of ethical and economic costs. Israel is a state which people refuse to buy its products, visit, and demand to be expelled from international organizations. In the world community, Israel has turned into a pariah state.
Any state uses excessive military force against civilians must lose the moral battle. Israel has acted as a gang of pirates, it fell in a trap devised by the aid flotilla. A failure that produced an international predicament, put itself in an international blockade tougher than Gaza’s. Israel has also managed, during the past sixty years, to create the false image of its invincible army, but the Lebanese resistance revealed the falsehood of Israel’s army.
Is it reasonable to be proud of this invincible army that kills unarmed human rights activists?! This army did not face an armed group, rather a peaceful group of men that carries medicine and baby milk. The whole world has started to understand the burden and the moral cost of protecting this rogue state, which ignored respecting human rights. No wonder then that Israel has the highest number of resolution issued by the international community against her. The Western world started to understand the security, financial and military burdens for supporting Israel; especially from its protection during Iraq-Iran war, the events of 11 September, to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
For the West, this entity has become a burden due to its hubris, folly leaders, continuous terrorism and indiscriminate killings. This burden was first evident when NATO forces attacked Iraq in the early 1990s, they asked Israel not to participate for fear of dismantling the 30-country coalition. Today, this state of aggression (i.e., Israel) has even become a heavy burden on the West, little by little, the tide began to turn against Israel.
All of the above proved that the countdown to the demise of this Zionist racist regime:
The legend of the unjust peace has fallen, which is based on the killing, expulsion of the Palestinians, and replacing them by Jewish diasporas.
There is a gradual shift that could change the equations, and this shift will be accompanied by major shifts, although these shifts would not be abrupt but slow process. This scenario needs neither the predictions of psychics nor visions of dreamers, but it needs a reading of the indicators.
(4) The West will not be able to combine good relations with the racist Zionist regime and the Islamic world together, they must re-consider their policies:
For that, the West should not keep inciting the abhorrence of the Arabs and the Muslims. The West must recognize the results of its excessive support for the Zionist regime, the aggressive occupier shouldn’t not be rewarded. The Zionist racist regime must be dismantled like the apartheid regime of South Africa. The West must stop risking its interests and its relations with the world, especially Arab and Muslim countries. The Arab and Islamic world is not Japan, which the West can destroy by a nuclear bomb, and then turned into an economic power devoid of arms. The Western public opinion must awake of its slumber, hold their leaders accountable for attempting in destroying the cultural relationship with the Arab and Muslim world, and to correct the reckless balance of the relationships. We call upon the United States of America and the European countries to lift their immunity of the racist Zionist state of Israel.
The Western public opinion must hold their governments accountable for dealing with the world according to their narrow visions and short-term policies, in top of their lacking of the moral basis.
(5) We call upon the United States of American and the European governments to stop supporting non-elected regimes in the Middle East:
The West should establish friendly relations with elected-government countries because they believe in the people power over the government, and they are accountable to their policies. Democratic countries, too, are results of power transition , and they follow the majority rule principle. They also permit the people to express their feelings and interests through petitions, rallies, and sit-ins.
Otherwise, the Western would regret supporting totalitarian regimes like they did when they supported the Shah of Iran until his throne fell into the abyss. The fate of all the police states is the same, and what happened to the Shah’s throne would happen to all the tyrants’ thrones. The people have discovered that the sun rises from the East, and the relations with China, India, Iran and Turkey could be a good substitute for the relation with the West.
(6) More Aid Flotillas for Gaza:
We call upon the government and non-government organizations to mimic the Turkish approach, it is the method of the free in order to take advantage of this great victory. The Arab and Islamic countries should frequently support aid flotillas to Gaza to dismantle the Gaza blockade. The aid flotilla vessels must increase from six to sixty, and the number volunteers also should go up from six hundred to six thousand. The number of martyrs must multiply from nine to hundreds in these fleets of sacrifice and altruism.
(7) We call upon the Arab countries to withdraw from the Arab peace initiative:
We also call on all Arab countries to withdraw their peace initiative because the usurper should not be rewarded, the apartheid regime began to disintegrate and so did the Arab peace initiative. The Arab states that introduced and supported the peace initiative should jump out of the sinking boat before they drown.
(8) We call upon all factions of the Palestinian people for unity, but on the principle of resistance.
(9) Ending the siege on Gaza:
We call upon Egypt to break the siege on Gaza and open all the crossings indefinitely.
Second: The repressive Arab states siege of their citizens and preventing them from sympathizing with Gaza: Saudi Arabia as a model:
(A) The manifestations of the siege of the Saudis by the MOI :
Many people have said that no point in demanding a permission for a sit-in, as long as the Interior Ministry insisted on its old habit: depriving the people of their rights. ACPRA ‘s answer proved this view is wrong, and was able to convince those hesitant and doubtful of the usefulness of applying for a sit-in permit. Those naysayer have failed to realize that it isn’t only Gaza under blockade but they too are under siege by their dictators, they also have failed to realize the reasons for the Turks’ strength compared to their own weakness. Many thanks are due to those who signed the petition; by doing just that they’ve thrown a big stone in the Ministry of the Interior’s stagnant pond, and have ensured that their vociferous sound be heard by the international community.
The Ministry of Interior’s refusal of the sit-in proved the following facts:
(1) The citizens’ contempt:
The MOI revealed its deep contempt of the citizens, deliberate abuse of their dignity, and its blatant oblivion to national demands. The statement by the MOI’s spokesman gave the people the impression that the request for the permission was not received in order to sow confusion among the people, a feature of the police state.
(2) Entrapping Activists :
MOI wants to drive a small number of enthusiasts to participate in the sit-in without a permit so it can arrest them. Because of their lack of experience, these young enthusiasts felt that waiting for a sit-in permission is equal to ceding for repression, and then they went out without a permit. MOI decided that killing activists who participated in a public sit-in without a permit is justified, let alone detaining them in order to stay in prison for a long period of time, as what happened to the likes of Khalid Al-Omair and Mohammed Al-Otaibi.
(3) From the rest of the world, Saudi Arabia is unique in suppressing peaceful expressions:
The petitioners of the public sit-in exposed the MOI’s repressive face; as the world’s only entity to prevent peaceful expressions.
(4) The contrast between rhetoric and deeds:
The petitioners had revealed in front of the whole world that MOI does not care about international conventions signed and ratified by the Saudi government to ensure freedom of peaceful expression and assembly. Furthermore, the evidence shows MOI tramples by her feet what has been signed the Foreign Ministry’s hands.
(5) The Quest for suppressing peaceful expression by distorted religious texts:
Soon after submitting the request for the sit-in, MOI started repeating the nonsense statements issued by the official jurists of the dark ages, who said that the demonstrations and sit-ins and the like are sources of anarchy, and may challenge the state’s security and public order. This is blatant evidence of what human rights advocates have been repeating that the MOI clamps down on the freedom of expression, advocates of a written constitution, civil-society activities and human rights by a corrupt religious discourse.
This is the evidence that the repressive current, surrounded by its scholars of darkness, dispatches its agents in mosques, gatherings, books, opinions, and the Internet accusing advocates of the constitution, civil society, and human rights of apostasy. Moreover, they claim that the constitution is heresy and secularization, and advocating civil society is anti God and the Prophet. These ignorant enjoy the privilege to write in the Internet, lecture in gatherings, and speak freely, while advocates of the constitution and civil society are thrown in prison, lose their jobs, closely monitored, and ban from traveling.
(6) The demolition of popular religious and civil leaders:
By ignoring the petitioners’ demand, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) provided the evidence of its demolition of the civil and religious community leaders, who could otherwise provide peaceful means and channels for expression to the people. These peaceful activities can protect the country from any future chaos or disintegration.
One of the oppressive princes once told Suliman Al-Reshoudi (one of scholars and a fellow of the Constitution Reform Movement): “If you have opinion, submit it to one of the official members of the Senior Scholars Commission, they would deliver it to us. Otherwise stay home, and let the public affairs for us.” Thus, in the eyes of this repressive prince, leading jurists- such as Judge Al-Reshoudi and Dr. Mussa Al-Qarni- become populace, riffraff, and mob. Hence, they have no right to address the princes – as well as the nation – only through the Senior Scholars Commission. Once a wise man was asked: “What does the wicked want from the good guys?.” He answered: “To be silent and leave the arena, in order for wicked to sabotage home.”
(7) Promoting poor civic and religious leaders:
The Ministry of Interior (MOI), has not only clamped down on the free and popular civil-society activities, but has also crushed the reform leaders who are the country’s free wide-opened eyes. They should be those who hold authorities like jurists, scholars, ombudsmen, preachers, university professors, intellectuals, those involved in public affairs, and journalists. Unfortunately, the oppressive regime has succeeded in marginalizing and silencing them.
Also MOI- through its controlled media- highlighted poor, hypocrite, suppressed leaderships. It also opened the way for insincere and double-faced spectra. These artificial leaders have absorbed the corrupt reality, and produce articles and commentaries that entrenched the features of the oppressed community.
(8) Killing the spirit of dignity and freedom:
The criminalization of peaceful expression, through demonstrations and sit-ins, is a bead in a well-devised plan rosary for killing the spirit of freedom, dignity, and pride in the hearts of the people. When the Ministry of the Interior has spread fear in all strata of the people- young and old, men and women- it sent a very serious warning and a specific message: everyone must limit his(her) activity to the home and family affairs, otherwise we have more secret repression. This secret repressions could be materially and morally, and may extend to the families and to the fields of work by the multiple agents of the secret police.
(9) Fear, terror, and the secret police are manifestations of the police state:
The prevention of sit-in and demonstrations is one of the obvious evidence that we are in a country controlled by the secret police, because this is one of features of the police-state model. In such atmosphere, the security apparatus controls activities, and inflicts injustice and oppression.
The results of the Ministry of Interior’s control over all kernels of the government, the political system has increasingly become far more repressive through blatant interventions in the people’s affairs. These interventions demonstrate that we are in a state run by the secret police, without cover or equivocation. The Ministry of Interior continues its systematic violations of human rights, by kneeling the people and robbing their dignity and freedoms under the pretext of national security! All of these features manifest the model of the police state.
(10) What is the meaning of the Saudi’s accession to the Human Rights Council?!:
Petitioners for the public sit-in have provided new evidence that the membership of Saudi Arabia in the Human Rights Council is just an emblem similar to the slogan of “applying the Sharia law.” We wonder how these human right violations could happen in a country that announces day and night the application of what God has revealed to the people, of course that includes freedom, dignity, and democracy.
How these violations could take place in a state sought the membership of the Human Rights Council, it’s obvious from its presence in the Human Rights Council that it wants to be a model in protecting human rights. That noble goal, however, requires that it must have a clean record in honoring human rights, but their action in denying a permission for a public sit-in is only evidence that suggests the real reason why the Saudis strove to be a member in the Human Rights Council. It’s glaringly conspicuous that Saudi Arabia wants to cover up its human rights violations, because the best way to deflect any train of its tracks is to be in the driving cabin!
In spite of Saudi Arabia’s membership in the Human Rights Council, several independent international organizations rank Saudi Arabia in respecting freedom of opinion and expression at 197th among the world countries, only on top of Cuba and North Korea!! Perhaps if these international organizations had known what many rights advocates know, Saudi Arabia would even top the lists of the dark ages!
(B) Results of preventing peaceful assembly: Rampant corruption and violence:
These facts testify that the police state is a natural producer for violence because this form of governance is the most lethal for human rights. As the late American President John F. Kennedy said ” Those who make peaceful change impossible, will make violent change inevitable ”
What resulted from the trilogy of injustice, repression and corruption are dozens of illegitimate children, like the number of drug victims who are roughly 300 thousand people, as well as mental illness and rampant crimes. Violence is also one of these illegitimate children, it only happened when the tense new generation became impulsive with neither teachers nor leaders to guide them towards peaceful projects of political reform. When that could not happen waves of violence erupted between their fingers.
This is the story of the earthquake of violence. It’s the harvest of the police state, in which the security apparatuses are built upon injustice, selfishness, impoverishing the people and degrading them. But on the other hand, security forces intimidate anyone who may scream, squeal, or shout vociferously to object any political, administrative, financial, and spiritual wrongdoings.
For that we would like to say as a matter of assertion and certainty: The political-dinosaur model and the model of the administrative octopus are the greatest causes of instability of the state.
(C) The Turkish lessons:
(1) The constitution and democratic governance or terrorism:
For all that, we call upon the Arab Nation in general and people in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in particular to rank their priority correctly. Because it is impossible for the people governed by despotic regimes to win over the tiny Zionist state, and in the experience of desert-tyranny states more evidence that don’t need further explanation. The Turks, however, win the battle because they are under democratic form of governance.
People must know that every democracy will lead to the glory and the dignity of the nation, the faith, and the State. Authoritarian regime, however, will lead to the humiliation of the nation, the state, and the faith.
Scholars should lead the people to call for a constitutional democratic rule, and to alert the heedless who are busy tearing up the country through sectarian conflicts.
(2) We demand the release of the scholars of the Constitutional Reform Movement: Al-Qarni and Al-Reshoudi and their companions:
We urge the government to release the scholars of the Constitution (i.e., The Jeddah Detainees), Suliman Al-Reshoudi and Mussa Al-Qarni and their companions. They have been imprisoned because they applied to MOI for a permission for a sit-in and a demonstration, or because they were accused of planning it. They have also participated in signing a petition for the support of Gaza sent to the King on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006.
They are:
1. Dr. Mussa Mohammed Al-Qarni, a lawyer and former university professor of Islamic Jurisprudence.
2. Suliman Ibrahim Al-Reshoudi, a lawyer and former judge.
3. Professor Abdulrahman Mohammed Al-Shomiri, former professor of Islamic Education.
4. Saif Al-Din Al Faisal
5. Dr. Saud Al-Mukhtar Al-Hashimi
6. Abdulrahman Bin Sadiq Khan.
We ask the oppressive authority to stop falsely fabricating charges against the scholars of the constitution and democracy, because masks have fallen.
(3) We demand the release of the human rights activist Mansour Salim Al-Otha:
Mr. Al-Otha has been arbitrarily arrested for more than three years in a preemptive strike, because he was planning to hold a peaceful demonstration in Al-Jouf province, like the demonstration that took place in the Qassim province.
(4) We demand the release of Khalid al-Omair and Mohammed Al-Otaibi:
We demand the release of Khalid bin Suleiman Al-Omair Mohammed bin Abdullah Al-Otaibi and their companions who were arrested more than a year ago, because they tried – despite the rejection MOI – to participate in a sit-in last year, called for by some human rights advocates.