DAR AL ISLAM-SAUDI ARABIA: SAUDI HUMAN RIGHTS SOCIETY, CAN YOU BELIEVE ONE ACTUALLY EXISTS?!?

The Human and the Not-So-Human
Abeer Mishkhas
The anticipated first report by the Saudi Human Rights Society is likely to shed a good deal of light on many cases of unnoticed and unreported human rights abuses in the Kingdom. The fact that the report is going to be issued by a Saudi committee, the first of its kind, makes it even more interesting. Now we must be realistic and admit the possibility that the report will touch on important issues without going into details or that the wording will be cautious. Still, in any case, I still think it is an important step, one we definitely hope will be followed by a number of similar others.

The past week also saw the first visit by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to Saudi Arabia. In a press release the organization said “Saudi officials have talked to us candidly about human rights in the Kingdom,” and the organization obviously wanted free access to prisons. The fact that the committee was allowed into the country and given reasonably good access to many areas is a very good step forward and definitely worth following up with more cooperation. Such visits reflect well on our country and they show both development and changes. They also send a message that our country is like others — it has problems to be solved and we are aware of them and are willing to admit and discuss them.

But to return to our own Saudi organization, their work has made a difference in many areas.

There have of course been some limitations which have stopped them from helping people in many other areas. To my knowledge, the organization cannot accept women who come to them when fleeing from abuse; in some cases the women are actually sent to the police who eventually take them back to their guardians — i.e. the abusers. In other cases, some of the women are transferred to shelters that sometimes refuse to accept them and send them back to their guardians.

Of course the whole idea of “guardian” needs to be reviewed as it has become a means of abusing women and children and sometimes the “guardian” contradicts basic human needs and rights. And this now brings us to the very sad and rightfully much-publicized case of Fatima. She is a woman who was forcibly divorced from her husband even though the two were in love and happily married. She has now chosen to remain in prison with her children until she can return to her husband; she refuses point-blank to return to her family. Her case should have been on the top of the list for our human rights organization; it is a glaring case of human rights abuse and injustice in its worst forms — not to mention a brazen contradiction of Islamic rules. And as we all know, in this country much stress is laid upon correct Islamic rules and practices.

According to a report in Arab News, Fatima’s husband was not allowed to talk to her on the phone because they are “legally” divorced. How, I wonder, in this country that follows the Shariah law as its only law, can this situation exist? The woman agreed to the marriage and was married with her father’s permission. No one can divorce her from her husband unless she or he chooses to do so. In Islam, there is no way for such a thing to happen except in a very few, highly unusual cases — and none of those cases pertain to the husband’s family or status.

And further I ask, isn’t Islam a religion of equality? Where does it say in the Qur’an that a difference in social status is a reason for people not to marry? Or that a couple should be separated because one of them is of a lower status than the other? Surely Islam teaches us that we are judged by our good deeds — or lack thereof — and not by our social status.
This case illustrates very clearly how certain traditions and customs have been mixed with religion and become laws on their own. The fact is that there is absolutely no basis for any such practices.

If our human rights society began to deal with such hot cases, it would mean that we are really serious about changing our society into a better one, one that is not afraid to face its problems and is proud to show the world that it is human to have problems and it is also human to acknowledge them and try to work them out.

Pertinent Links:

1) The Human and the Not-So-Human