Real Face of the MbS Regime: Saudi Sisters Describe the Oppressive Society They Left Behind

[Pavel + 384]

It was the lack of change after a 2016 hashtag campaign against Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship laws that finally pushed Reem to flee what she described as her country’s system of female enslavement. Reem, who had never so much as felt the sunlight outside her door without a male relative’s permission, read on her iPhone about freedoms enjoyed by young women elsewhere. Then she came across #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen. “It was depressing to know that we don’t have a future as women in Saudi Arabia and we don’t have any hope for change. The ones who dared to [attempt] change got imprisoned,” she tells TIME in an interview. “This is the moment I planned to leave the country.” She told her younger sister, Rawan, and over the next two and a half years, they plotted their escape via late night WhatsApp messages. “Life in Saudi for a woman with a strict family is like waiting around to die,” Rawan says. Six months ago, they made their move. But despite their careful plans, the sisters, aged 18 and 20, ended up in the crosshairs of the Saudi government’s efforts to repatriate runaways. They are the latest Saudi women to become marooned in an unfamiliar metropolis, pleading with the international community to provide a safe haven. In 2018, Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was applauded by Western governments for removing a ban on women drivers and reopening movie theaters. But advocates say these incremental changes do little to ease the world’s most rigidly enforced gender segregation, and call for the release of detained female activists and an end to the male guardianship system that prevents women from freely working or even leaving the home without a husband or father’s permission....

[pinto + 293]

Accept a way of life in Saudi Arabia with their full violence on basic human rights and treating women as a 3rd class citizen means one: morbid society without scruples.

[50 shades of black + 254]

Torture and abuse, the brand name of SA...

[50 shades of black + 254]

Sorry, I forgot the killings👎

[damirUSBiH + 327]

Hmm. Carrot and stick...

"Saudi Arabia appoints first female ambassador to the US"

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/24/politics/saudi-appoints-us-ambassador/index.html

 

[ThunderBlade + 231]

Rights are something you have. Privileges are something other people have. Women in Saudi Arabia don't have neither of it.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,132]

10 hours ago, pinto said:

Accept a way of life in Saudi Arabia with their full violence on basic human rights and treating women as a 3rd class citizen means one: morbid society without scruples.

Don't worry, Saudi Arabia is on the UN Human "rights" panel....

Oh yea...

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

This has all the earmarks of ending very badly.  Those girls are sitting in Hong Kong, they have little money, and unless they can slip away  (for example, hire a sampan to take them to Formosa, or to Okinawa and plead for asylum at a US military base there), you have to expect that the Chinese government will toss them back to the Saudis.  From there:  well, judging by the movie Death of a Princess, it is a very short step to the beheading by sword.   Ugh. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

This has all the earmarks of ending very badly.  Those girls are sitting in Hong Kong, they have little money, and unless they can slip away  (for example, hire a sampan to take them to Formosa, or to Okinawa and plead for asylum at a US military base there), you have to expect that the Chinese government will toss them back to the Saudis.  From there:  well, judging by the movie Death of a Princess, it is a very short step to the beheading by sword.   Ugh. 

Man, I sure hope not.  Hopefully a group or government will step forward and get them to safety.  If we can't defend these ladies when they risk their lives to taste what we all take for granted, then that does not speak well of us, or our words.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, Dan Warnick said:

Man, I sure hope not.  Hopefully a group or government will step forward and get them to safety.  If we can't defend these ladies when they risk their lives to taste what we all take for granted, then that does not speak well of us, or our words.

Unfortunately, the Communist Chinese took over control of Hong Kong and control both the immigration and the police.  Based on what happened in Canada and with at least two Canadian nationals who were arbitrarily picked up and tossed in jail for the cardinal life error of being Canadian, when the well-connected Wanzhou Meng, she of Huawei Technologies,  was busted at Vancouver Airport, I have zero confidence that the Chinese Communists give a damn about some Saudi girls.  Back they go.  

[John Foote + 1,135]

On an optimistic note, I think you'll find folks who have spent time in Saudi over the past few years view the women as a reason for optimism. Prior to the early 60s it was illegal to send a girl to school. Now that outnumber the men in universities. I worked for a Saudi woman for a time, with graduate degree from UT. 

The drive they needed to get where they are, wow. Reason for hope.

And yes, the guardianship system is fundamentally wrong. 

KSA gave up slavery in the early 60s. Egypt, thru Yemen, were threatening the KSA. They asked us to stop it. The CIA advised Kennedy to stop Egypt's adventures. As part of the CIA fact book Kennedy learned they still had slavery. His response was to demand the end of slavery, and we'll handle it. They shift to the indentured servitude system. One of my best friends in Saudi is the son of a slave.

The USA as a country has, IMHO, lost it's way in asserting moral authority. We were never perfect, but overall better than most. 

[shadowkin + 584]

Nothing we didn't already know. Remember the Western media have been splashing their pages with MbS and his shit eating grin. Women can drive now (practically nothing changed). He's a reformer. He's opening up. He wants to change. Western media at the behest of their governments have enabled Saudi for decades. The only reason they've soured on him now was the murder of Khashoggi who was himself a jihadist. It's a sick joke.