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SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi
Scholars Announce the
Formation
of a “Commission for the Defense
of Legitimate
Rights”
Six
scholars and lawyers who set up a human rights commission in Saudi
Arabia have been fired from their jobs, and the lawyers’ licenses were
revoked. The action was taken “in light of the dictates of the public
interest,” read the brief statement distributed by the official Saudi
press agency.
The
six scholars and lawyers announced on May 3, 1993 the formation of a
Commission for the Defense of Legitimate Rights and encouraged all
aggrieved and oppressed citizens to report to the new commission all
cases of
oppression
and injustice for redress.
The
signatories include religious, legal, and academic scholars. In their
statement, they declared as religious duty any effort or activity
seeking to eliminate oppression and injustice. They also provided
specific
addresses
and telephone numbers to which all accounts of injustice and discrimination
may be directed.
The
declaration, which has touched off wide-spread interest in Saudi Arabia
and abroad, represents yet a new link in a chain of events and
initiatives reflecting Saudi people’s growing awareness of their civil
rights and liberties.
In
a letter to members of the commission, International Committee for
Human Rights in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula (ICHR-GAP) has hailed the
declaration as a significant initiative and a welcome development in the
ongoing struggle to restore freedom of expression
of
which the overwhelming majority of Saudis have been deprived.
According
to reliable information received by IGHR-GAP, the Governor of Riyadh
Province, Prince Salman bin Abdulazis summoned founding members of the
new commission on May 8 and asked for a full explanation of their motives
which he considered as ill-intentioned.
In
the two-hour session, which went unnoticed in the Saudi news media,
Prince Salman, who said he was acting on orders
by
the King, voiced indignation and dismay over the formation of the
Commission which he termed as “incredible and outrageous.”
The
scholars were reported to have stressed the fact that their
declaration was by no means in contravention to the cherished Islamic
principles. In fact, they said,
their
declaration was one of the actions and initiatives Islam has always
blessed and encouraged as vitally significant.
This
apparently outraged the Prince who threatened to ask the religious establishment
to issue an edict denouncing them and pronouncing their Commission as
null and void.
In
Saudi Arabia, Iraqi Refugees are Raped, Beaten, and Forcibly Repatriated
They
thought they were lucky to escape the brutal atrocities of Saddam
Hussein’s army and security forces when they sought shelter in Saudi
Arabia, but
Iraqi
refugees, about 28,000 at the Raffia camp alone, are being mistreated
daily by their Saudi “hosts” who think that not only Islam, but also
hospitality before the advent of Islam were both born in Saudi Arabia.
Twelve thousand of the Raffia (or Rafah) refugee camps are former
prisoners of war, while the rest are civ iiians accompanied by their
families. They were among those who revolted in March 1991 against the
dictatorship of Saddam Hussein just to find themselves confronted
first by American guns then by Saudi security forces.
Their
uprising, Intifada, was aborted, their homes were later demolished by
Iraq’s regime, and their relatives either killed or jailed. In
Saudi
Arabia, conditions for them do not seem to be better than those in which
they had left their relatives upon fleeing.
First,
there were two refugee camps for Iraqis: one in Raffia, and the other in
Artawiyya. The latter camp house young and single prisoners of war.
Both camps were situated
close
to the Iraqi border, making them more accessible to infiltration by
Iraq’s mukhabarat, feared intelligence apparatus. Last November,
Saudi authorities decided to close the Artaquiyya camp, packing more
refugees at the already crowded Raffia camp.
On
March 8 and 9, the camp, according to the United Nations Human Rights
Commission (UN7HRC), about 2,000 refugees peacefully demonstrated to
demand the release of one Iraqi family detained at a check-point near
the Iraqi-Saudi border, and skirmishes followed. Saudi authorities
claimed that some refugees set fire to the camp’s school, library,
and shops.
Saudi
authorities further claimed that five Saudi nationals, and five refugees
were killed and twenty were wounded, whereas refugee sources say that
sixteen Iraqis were killed during the disturbances.
The
UNHRC conceded that if its field officer had not been there when the
disturbance took place, there would have been a blood bath. Saudi
authorities brought seventy armed vehicles and surrounded the camp. As
many as 400 refugees were detained for questioning, of whom 313 were
released while the whereabouts of the remaining 87 are still unknown.
An
entire camp was punished collectively because of that incident, and
the
atmosphere
inside the camp remains tense. The refugees live in constant fear and
anxiety without being able to send or receive mail.
It
is believed that Iraqi infiltrators caused those disturbances: The
Iraqi News Agency was the first to report what happened there. How did
it come to know?
The
Washington Post also conducted interviews of its own and came to the
conclusion that infiltration by Iraqi government security forces was a
strong possibility.
But
why should the Saudis persecute these Iraqis? The answer is very simple.
These Iraqis have come mostly from southern Iraq, and they adhere to
the Shi’a faith which the Wahhabi government of Saudi Arabia, due to
its ignorance and prejudice, regards as “heretic,” and outside of
the mainstream of Islam.
Anti-Shi’a
leaflets were circulated throughout the camp by Saudis who are
subjecting these refugees to various forms of abuse such as rape,
insult, solitary confinement, and molestation. Both males
and
females have been raped by Saudi “security” guards. Some refugees
were forcibly repatriated to Iraq.
Amnesty
International published a report last year which said that 600 of the
1,200 refugees who were forced to return to Iraq were killed; some were
“welcomed” with poisoned cold drinks at the border.
A
large number of these refugees are highly trained and educated professionals,
military officers, engineers, technicians, medical doctors and
teachers. One of them, Muhammad Abbas Kazim, sent a letter to a friend
in London in which he wrote, “I stayed there for about ten months,
then a Saudi
officer
tried to force me and others to sign an agreement to repatriate. When we
refused, he beat us severely, and we became unconscious. As we were
unconscious, he forged our signatures and we were transferred to the
baqi-Saudi border.”
As
many as 40- 60 refugees are voluntanly leaving
the
camp monthly out of desperation, and as many as 180 Iraqis told UN7HRC
officials that they were planning to go back to Iraq because they
preferred to die at home rather than in Saudi Arabia.
In
August and November of last year, 100 refugees went on a week-long
hunger strike. Fifteen refugees committed suicide by burying
themselves alive in the sand up to their necks.
TAJIKISTAN: Communists Murder Muslims
In
an exclusive interview to the London-based Arabic daily, Al-Hayat,
Akbar Turkhan Zadeh, supreme Muslim judge
of Tajikistan, who fled his country recently, unveiled the untold
atrocities perpetrated by the Russians against vulnerable Tajik women
and children.
So
far, more than 100,000 Muslims have fallen victims to a genocide by
Russian forces which has been taking place away from the eyes of the
world. Millions have been forced to flee for their safety, across the
mined rugged terrains on the Afghani-Tajik border and seek shelter in
Afghanistan which cannot afford a safe haven even for its own refugees
now living in Pakistan and Iran. Supreme Judge Akbar Turkhan Zadeh noted
that there was a wall of silence by
the
international media on the plight of his people, and he appealed to
humanitarian aid agencies to do more in the way of alleviating the
desperate conditions of the refugees who fled to Afghanistan.
“The
Communist design was ready long before civil war broke out,” he
said, adding “in order to stem the
Islamic
reawakening which manifested itself in tumultuous return to the Islamic
ideal and the reopening of hundreds of mosques coupled with the
establishment of scores of new Islamic institutions throughout the
country."
In
a plea to his Muslim brethren, Supreme Judge Turkhan Zadeh urged them to
help their brethren in Tajekistan in all possible ways. “We know that
the tragedies and problems besetting Muslims in many spots in the
world are many. However, we have to count on our brothers more than on
anyone else,” he said.
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