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MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - NEWSFLASH - 3/20/2002: Just days after Vice-President Richard Cheney visited Saudi Arabia and other countries in the area there are reports coming from the region that U.S. military forces are beginning to move out of Prince Sultan Air Base, a facility the U.S. is said to have spent tens of billions of dollars to make the most modern command base in the region.
The military equipment and command center now at the Saudi base are said to be being moved to another major U.S. military base in neighboring Qatar, home of Al Jazeera TV which has yet to broadcast the story.
Back in January in a major series of stories in the Washington Post story an unnamed Saudi embassy official thought to be the powerful Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan himself, son of the Saudi Defense Minister, said the kingdom would soon ask Washington to move its forces out if in fact the U.S. was intent on going forward with a heightened military campaign against Iraq.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Associated press - March 20, 2002) - In a country where dissent is rarely tolerated, a poet who penned verses blasting Saudi Arabia's Islamic judges as corrupt and serving "tyrants" has been jailed and the newspaper editor who published the poem fired, a Saudi official said Wednesday.
Prince Nayef, the interior minister, ordered Mohammed Mokhtar al-Fal, editor-in-chief of the Arabic-language Al-Madina, to be fired a few days after the poem, titled "The Corrupt on Earth," appeared March 10, said the official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
The poet, Abdul Mohsen Musalam, was jailed, the official said. It was not clear what he was charged with or whether he would be formally tried.
The poem was a rare public criticism in a country where most of the newspapers - including the one where the poem was printed - are owned by the government.
Musalam's poem accused the Islamic judges of taking bribes and ruling unjustly to please "tyrants." It took its title from the Quran, which rules that "the corrupt on earth" must be put to death.
"It is sad that in the Muslim world, justice is suffering from a few judges who care for nothing but their bank accounts and their status with the rulers," the poem's introduction read.
The poem reads, in part:
"How many (sacred) verses and sayings you have slaughtered. "Your beards are smeared with blood. "You indulge a thousand tyrants and only the tyrant do you obey."
Al-Fal could not be reached for comment. An official at the paper, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed al-Fal was no longer working with the paper, saying only, "The poem was published, that's that, and al-Fal is no longer with us."
The judicial system in Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia, or Islamic law. A judge or panel of judges hears a case, cross-examines the defendant and possible witnesses, and pronounces the verdicts and the sentence.
Unlike Western courts, the accused are not defended by lawyers, except in very rare cases where Westerners are involved and the conservative Muslim kingdom is worried about international opinion. Criticizing judges and other religious authorities is rare.
Last week, Saudi newspapers launched an unprecedented attack on members of the religious police - the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, accusing them of blocking rescue attempts by male firefighters and paramedics at a fire in a school for girls in Mecca, western Saudi Arabia.
The March 11 fire ended in the death of 15 girls, and 50 others were injured.
Newspapers said that the firefighters were not allowed in because some of the girls were not wearing the long dresses and head coverings required in public.
Prince Nayef on Monday defended the religious police, denied the stories and criticized newspapers for reporting "news which turns out to be untrue."
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| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2002/3/712.htm |