 Saudi Legal Reform Put To The Test

A spate of recent religious opinions and court rulings ranging from the bizarre to endorsement of mutilation issued by prominent Saudi sheikhs and judges highlight the difficulties King Abdullah is encountering in clamping down on fatwas and his efforts to reform and codify the kingdom’s largely unwritten Islamic legal regulations that govern the kingdom’s criminal, civil and family courts. To be fair, few, if any, of the more outrageous Saudi legal opinions and rulings have recently been put into practice.

In the latest ruling sparking international concern, Saudi judge Sheikh Saud Al-Yousef this month ordered a man to be paralyzed in retribution for injuries he allegedly caused with a meat cleaver during a fight two years ago. Applying the principle of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,’ the judge ruled that the man should be injured at the same place on his spinal cord to cause identical crippling damage to what he inflicted on his victim 22-year-old Abdul-Aziz al-Mitairy. The man was originally sentenced to seven months in prison by a court in the northwestern town of Tabuk, but his victim subsequently petitioned the court to impose an equivalent punishment on his attacker in accordance with principle of qisas, retribution, embedded in Islamic law. Past Saudi applications of qisas have involved eye-gouging, tooth extraction, and death in cases involving murder. Two Saudi hospitals, including Riyadh’s prestigious King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, rejected on ethical grounds the judge’s request that they implement his ruling.

In a statement condemning the ruling, Amnesty International said another hospital had advised the judge that it was medically possible to administer to the perpetrator an injury identical to the one that he caused. “Under international human rights law, the use of this sentence would constitute a violation of the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” the statement quoted Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa Acting Director Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui. Sahraoui suggested the court imprison, fine or flog the condemned man.

In an apparent effort to counter international criticism, the judge and a senior Saudi official attempted to downplay the judge's request. The official told CNN that paralysis was never considered as a punishment in the case. Al Riyadh newspaper quoted the judge as saying that "The proceedings in this case are still pending and no verdict had been issued in that regards." Al-Yousef said the court had queried a number of hospitals and other authorities about surgical paralysis in order to convince the plaintiff about the impossibility of carrying out such a medical procedure."The plaintiff was demanding punishment of the attacker, and the judicial ruling in this case only includes the plaintiff's eligibility for blood money," he said.

Earlier this month, Saudi authorities pulled the plug on the daily radio program of Sheikh Abdel Mohsen Obeikan, a cleric and royal court adviser who earlier this year earned notoriety by decreeing that women could give men breast milk to avoid illicit gender mixing. Saudi Arabia bans women from mixin with men who are no their guardians defined as their husband or first line relatives such as father or brothers. The decision followed a controversial royal decree by Abdullah authorizing only members of the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars to issue fatwas in a bid to put a halt to religious rulings that embarrass the kingdom.

The Tabuk judge ordered the mutilation after Abdullah issued his decree. Among other rulings this year, Sheikh Yousuf Ahmad, a lecturer at the Imam Mohammad bin Saud University in Riyadh, suggested that only Muslim maids could work in Saudi homes. He also called for the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site and the world's largest mosque, to be demolished and rebuilt to ensure segregation between the sexes in the shrine. Saudi clergy are debating women’s right to engage in competitive sports with the kingdom under increased pressure from the International Olympic Committee to ease restrictions.

Abdullah recently won a major victory when the kingdom’s top religious body endorsed his proposed codification of Saudi law needed to meet World Trade Organization and human rights standards, encourage foreign investment, standardize legal practice and grant courts enforcement powers. Lawyers and analysts caution however that codification may take several years given conservative fears that it could undermine Saudi Arabia’s puritan interpretation of Islamic law as well as the independence of judges by making them adhere to written rules and regulations.

Testing the Saudi winds of reform, Suliman al-Reshoudi, a 73-year old former judge imprisoned without trial for the past three years ago on vague allegations related to his legal support of democracy advocates, has opened a court case to force the Interior Ministry and security services to either formally charge or release him. The case, the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia, is based on a yet to be tested legal offering protection to detainees introduced after Al-Reshoudi’s arrest in 2007.

Iran Shuts Down European Company

Iranian security officials have shut down the local office of European cosmetics firm Oriflame in a move likely to scare away foreign investors at a time that Western companies are leaving Iran or scaling back operations because of international sanctions that restrict trade with the Islamic Republic.

Iranian officials and Oriflame executives say authorities arrested five company employees, including a Swedish national. The authorities accuse Oriflame, a publicly held $1.6 billion cosmetics firm that eschews animal testing and claims to use natural ingredients, of running a $70 million pyramid scheme involving 250,000 cases of fraud.

Company officials and analysts say the charges are a pretext for Iranian concerns that Oriflame’s business model empowers thousands of Iranian women by allowing them to earn substantial amounts as independent sales consultants. They said the charges were moreover an attempt to distract attention from the fact that busting the sanctions aimed at punishing Iran for its nuclear program has sparked a booming business for government-run sanction busting companies that operate through fronts in Venezuela and Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.

Oriflame warned its investors in recent months that it was finding it increasingly difficult to operate in Iran with authorities obstructing its sales and waging a media campaign against it. Despite the shutdown of its Tehran office, Oriflame said it was determined to maintain operations in Iran, which accounts for 20 percent of the company’s Asian sales. Oriflame with operations in 62 countries was founded in Sweden in 1967, but has since moved its headquarters to Switzerland and Luxemburg.

French Raid on Al Qaeda Paves Way for Spanish Hostage Release

Last month’s French-Mauritanian attack on Al Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa failed to liberate a 78-year old French hostage, but in an unexpected twist, has driven a wedge between the jihadists and their Tuareg tribal allies in the region and is fomenting tension between Al Qaeda commanders, according to Western and West African intelligence sources.

The emerging divide between the affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the Tuareg who accuse the Malian government of failing to implement a 2008 agreement that was supposed to end their tribal insurgency and grant the Tuareg greater rights offers President Amadou Toumani Toure as well as US, French and British counterterrorism efforts in the region an opportunity to substantially weaken the jihadists to whom local tribes provide a crucial lifeline. It has also provided an opening for the release of two Spanish hostages held by the jihadists.

AQIM commander Abdelhamid (Hamidu) Abu Zaid has accused the Tuareg of assisting the French-led attack in which six jihadists were killed by pinpointing the whereabouts of the AQIM operatives. To revenge the betrayal, Abu Zaid last week abducted and killed Mirzag Ag El Housseini, a Tuareg customs officer whose brother is senior commander in the Malian army. In a statement, AQIM’s leader in Mauritania, Abu Anas al-Shanqiti, warned that his group would retaliate against the “traitorous apostates, children and agents of Christian France” who had cooperated in the raid. The French Foreign Ministry says its forces are “fully mobilized” to counter “threats uttered by assassins.”

Mauritania, despite the threats, this week threw the jihadists a bone by extraditing to Mali a key Malian AQIM operative, Omar Sid'Ahmed Ould Hamma, who was convicted to 12 years in prison for kidnapping three Spaniards last November. Alicia Gomez, one of the hostages, was released in March. Analysts say the extradition was designed to set the stage for the release of the two remaining Spanish hostages and fuel differences of opinion between AQIM commanders about the fate of the Spaniards. The analysts and Malian officials say Abu Zaid is urging AQIM’s leader in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, under whose control the Spaniards are, to execute them in retaliation for the French-Mauritanian raid.

Mali has been quietly negotiating with Belmokhtar the release of the hostages. Malian officials say that the extradition of Hamma may enable Belmokhtar, who is demanding a ransom, to cut a deal and claim political success. Hamma’s extradition contrasts starkly with Mauritania’s participation in the French-led raid and its past refusal to negotiate with the jihadists. Mauritanian relations with Mali soured earlier this year after the government in Nouakchott accused Mali of being soft on terrorism by releasing in February four AQIM operatives in exchange for French hostage Pierre Camatte.

Israel, Jordan Rocket Attacks Raise Specter of Renewed Sinai Violence

James M. Dorsey | 12 Aug 2010

World Politics Review

A recent rocket attack on the twin Red Sea resorts of Eilat in Israel and Aqaba in Jordan raises the specter of renewed Bedouin violence in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, where security forces are struggling to fight crime, illegal immigration and terrorist threats, as well as to protect oil and gas pipelines.

In the wake of the attacks, an Egyptian security operation aimed at uprooting militant Palestinian and Bedouin groups as well as jihadist elements confirmed Israeli and Jordanian claims that the rockets had been launched from Sinai. It was the second such attack in four months. Security forces discovered evidence of a misfired Grad-type rocket during the operation that focused on the mountains near the resort of Taba as well as areas near Sinai's border with Gaza that have been declared off limits to foreigners. Days before the attacks, security forces reportedly arrested three men in a bomb-laden vehicle they intended to explode in the resort of Sharm el Sheikh.

Egypt has long had difficulty maintaining law and order in the Sinai, crucial to the country's tourism industry. Bedouin tribesmen operate an extensive smuggling network that tunnels supplies into the beleaguered Gaza Strip and sneaks African migrants across the border into Israel. Tribesmen assisted in a spate of bombings of tourism resorts in the Sinai between 2004 and 2006 in which 145 people were killed. A group believed to be linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility in 2005 for rocket launched from Sinai at U.S. war ships docked in the port of Aqaba, and Egypt has since announced various arrests of Palestinians seeking to launch projectiles from the peninsula.

Authorities in Egypt and Israel fear that the rocket attacks signal an increase in jihadist activity in the Sinai and radicalization of Bedouin groups. The rocket attacks add to mounting tension on Israel's borders in the wake of the first clash between Israeli and Lebanese forces since Israel attacked the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah in 2006 and as Arab states seek to ensure that the imminent announcement of the results of an international inquiry into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri does not plunge Lebanon into renewed civil strife. The inquiry is expected to conclude that Hezbollah operatives were involved in the assassination.

The rocket attacks were likely designed to maintain pressure on the Egyptian government to make good on promises to address Bedouin grievances and to reassert the Bedouin's role as suppliers to the Gaza Strip at a moment that their business is threatened by Israel's decision to significantly loosen its blockade of Gaza. Bedouin militancy stems from racial discrimination as well as a sense that the government has failed to follow through on promises to invest in economic and social development. Of the $22 billion pledged in 1994 by the government for Sinai development, only $2 billion has so far been invested, primarily in the construction of tourism facilities in the south and in securing the border with Gaza. The Bedouin say they have benefited little from those investments. Tourism is a $10.8 billion business that accounts for one in eight jobs in Egypt.

The rockets were fired barely two weeks after Egyptian Interior Minister Habib Adli met with tribal leaders in a bid to ease tension and fend off Bedouin threats to sabotage oil and gas pipelines, including a natural-gas line that supplies Israel. Adli agreed to release scores of detained Bedouins, including prominent activist and blogger Mossad Abu Fajr. Some 370 Bedouin activists are believed to be lingering in Egyptian jails. Adli also promised to rollback repressive measures and initiate development projects that would create jobs in the Sinai in return for Bedouin cooperation in apprehending terrorists and fugitive Bedouin militants.

In support of Adli's promises, the Egyptian oil ministry announced that it was establishing an oil services company in the Sinai that would create jobs by drilling wells, laying pipelines and building storage tanks across the peninsula. The ministry said half of the company's employees would be local hires. Nonetheless, more radical Bedouin leaders denounced the meeting with Adli, charging that the tribal leaders he met were government appointees who did not represent the local population.

The meeting with Adli followed an ambush of police forces in which tribesmen freed Bedouin leader Salim Lafy. Two policemen were killed in the incident. Lafy and some 30 other tribesmen remain at large and have threatened to attack government installations if security forces continue to raid their homes. The tribesmen also attacked a Gaza-bound humanitarian convoy, set fire to tires near a natural gas pipeline that supplies Syria and Jordan and disrupted trade along the border with Israel.

In a letter last month to an Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm, fugitive Bedouin leader Moussa el-Dalah blamed the smuggling and violence on the government's treatment of the tribesmen as a security problem rather than as full-fledged citizens with economic and social grievances. "Bedouins are compelled to use violence to show that the use of excessive force to quell us will not work. The government has to find another way to deal with us if it genuinely believes we are part of a single nation with one common destiny," El-Dalah wrote. "We hear about social and economic development, but we hardly see meaning to it here in Sinai. . . . We are forced to use illicit methods to secure a livelihood for the government has left us with no alternative. Instead, it has chosen to shape our communities by handpicking our tribal chiefs and recruiting our younger men as undercover agents."

Pakistan Floods Provide Political Boon to Islamic Militants

James M. Dorsey | 11 Aug 2010

World Politics Review


Pakistan's worst flooding in almost a century may well be remembered as much for the magnitude of the disaster as for the fact that it constituted a major setback in the government's efforts -- backed by its Western and Muslim allies -- to defeat Islamist militants allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

There is a long list of natural and man-made disasters in Islamic countries in which militant Islamists have garnered popularity by quickly and effectively responding with relief and emergency aid, in stark contrast to governments that were slow to react and unable to provide services to victims. By launching immediate and effective aid operations, the militants bolster their contention that governments perceived as corrupt, authoritarian and heavily dependent on foreign aid cannot be trusted to serve the people. Past disasters in Pakistan itself as well as in countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Indonesia and Bangladesh demonstrate that such crises provide an opportunity for militants to build political capital.

This history is repeating itself with the Pakistani floods. In areas where the Pakistani government is competing with militants for control, militant Islamist charities, some associated with groups designated by the United Nations or the United States as terrorist organizations, provided aid to thousands displaced and made homeless by the floods days before government and foreign aid started to arrive. Meanwhile, rather than staying at home to coordinate relief efforts, already unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari visited France and Britain during the floods.

Charities like Falah-e-Insaniyat (Foundation for the Welfare of Humanity), the charity arm of Lashkar-e-Taibe, widely suspected of being responsible for the Mumbai attacks in 2008, have for the second time in five years emerged as the most effective providers of relief in disaster-stricken areas of Pakistan. The charities' performance emulates their success in the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir where their immediate and efficient relief efforts served as a recruitment tool for their militant backers. The 2005 experience did not translate into votes for religious parties in Pakistan's 2008 elections, but the Islamists' latest success with the floods and widespread criticism of the government threatens to undermine popular support for the U.S.-backed government's military campaign against al-Qaida and homegrown Taliban militants in the northwest of the country.

The lesson to be learned from the floods and past disasters is that economic competition with militant Islamists is as important a component in the struggle to defeat faith-inspired political violence as is military strength and law enforcement. An examination of the world's most sustainable and lethal faith-based terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taibe, Palestine' s Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Taliban in Afghanistan, shows that economic competition may hold the key to substantially weakening, if not defeating these groups.

These groups are effective at providing such aid because they trace their origins to being faith-based service providers. Eli Berman, a former member of the Israeli military's elite Golani brigade who is now a University of California economist, calls such groups "economic clubs." Only at a later stage of their development, and sometimes only reluctantly, did they bolt a military apparatus onto their civil activity.

"The government may defeat the insurgent military cadre, but, with few exceptions, insurgencies do not end until case-specific root causes are addressed: The kind of grassroots support necessary to build and sustain an insurgency is fed on social, economic, and political discontent," concludes a recently published Rand Corporation study on how insurgencies end.

The problem for Western governments and their allies is translating from theory into practice the realization that they need to compete economically, not only militarily with militants. As is evident with the Pakistani floods, the cost-benefit analysis of that realization and the organizational implications it has for U.S. and other Western militaries has yet to sink in. Adapting the organization of armed forces so that they can effectively incorporate economic competition in their strategy is a slow process that contrasts starkly with the speed in which militants like Lashkar-e-Taibe are able to demonstrate institutional flexibility. Western military officials and U.N. and other aid workers grapple in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example, with the fact that the military is structured as a fighting machine rather than a development agency and aid organizations are not geared to defending themselves -- a combination of skills and ability inherent to successful militant groups.

Yet, the sooner the United States and its allies like Pakistan are able to adapt to a comprehensive counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency strategy that involves economic competition, the sooner they will likely produce sustainable rather than immediate but perishable results and the more prepared they will be when disaster strikes next. "Concentrating on capturing or killing every last terrorist (or buying off some warlord to do so) can probably only succeed in the short run, since the underlying conditions of weak governance and/or weak service provision will likely continue to generate new terrorist clubs," Berman argues. "The challenge is then to find a way to sustainably stabilize allied governments in countries currently generating terrorism, not by merely improving their coercive capability but by also enhancing the ability of local government to provide basic services that replace those provided by clubs."

Floods Provide Political Boon For Pakistani Militants

Pakistan’s worst flooding in almost a century may well be remembered as much for the magnitude of the disaster as for the fact that it constituted a major setback for the government and its Western and Muslim allies in their competition with militant Islamists for hearts and minds. The floods are joining a long list of disasters in a host of Islamic countries in which militant Islamists garnered popularity by quickly and effectively responding with relief and emergency aid in stark contrast to a government that was slow to react and unable to quickly provide services to victims.

Effective Islamist aid operations strengthen the militants’ contention that governments perceived as corrupt, authoritarian and heavily dependent on foreign aid cannot be trusted to serve the people. In the case of the Pakistani floods, that message is reinforced by mounting criticism of President Asif Ali Zardari for visiting France and Britain during the floods rather than staying at home to coordinate relief efforts, which he says are the responsibility of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. The message is compounded by the fact that militant Islamist charities, some designated by the United Nations or the United States as terrorist organizations, provided shelter, food, clothing and medical aid to thousands displaced and made homeless by the floods days before government and foreign aid started to arrive in areas where the government is competing with militants for control. If past disasters in Pakistan itself as well as in countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Indonesia and Bangladesh are any yardstick, the political capital up for grabs will likely be secured by the militants who for the umpteenth time have proven to be able to deliver where governments failed.

The lesson learnt from these disasters is that economic competition with militant Islamists is as important a component in the struggle to defeat faith-inspired political violence as is military strength and law enforcement. If anything, the study of the world’s most sustainable and lethal, faith-based terrorist groups, including Palestine’ s Hamas, Lebanon’s Hizbollah, Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taibe and the Taliban in Afghanistan, shows that economic competition may hold the key to substantially weakening, if not defeating these groups. Falah-e-Insaniyat, the charity arm of Lashkar-e-Taibe, widely suspected of being responsible for the Mumbai attacks in 2008, has emerged as the one of the most effective providers of relief in flood-ravaged areas of Pakistan. What makes these groups so effective is the fact that they trace their origins to being faith-based service providers. Only at a later stage, and sometimes only reluctantly, did they bolt a military apparatus onto their civil activity. They successfully win hearts and minds by effectively responding to natural and man-made disasters in areas where governments like that of President Zardari have effectively ceded responsibility for the provision of basic social services, including security, education and healthcare. “With a few exceptions, lasting insurgency endings are shaped not by military action but by social, economic, and political change…The government may defeat the insurgent military cadre, but, with few exceptions, insurgencies do not end until case-specific root causes are addressed: The kind of grassroots support necessary to build and sustain an insurgency is fed on social, economic, and political discontent…,” concludes a recently published Rand Corporation study on how insurgencies end.

The problem for Western governments and their allies is translating the realization that they need to compete economically and not only militarily with militants is translating theory into practice. As is evident with the Pakistani floods, the cost benefit analysis of that realization and the organizational implications it has for the military has yet to sink in. Adapting the organization of armed forces so that they can effectively incorporate economic competition in their strategy is a slow process that contrasts starkly with the speed in which militants like Lashkar-e-Taibe are able to demonstrate institutional flexibility. Western military officials and UN and other aid workers grapple in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for example, with the fact that the military is structured as a fighting machine rather than a development agency and aid organizations are not geared to defending themselves – a combination of skills and ability inherent to successful militant groups.

Rocket Attack Points To Egypt's Bedouins

A recent rocket attack on the twin Red Sea resorts of Eilat in Israel and Aqaba in Jordan focuses attention on long-simmering discontent among Egypt’s Bedouins in the Sinai peninsula. Both Egypt and Jordan have charged that the rockets that killed one person in Aqaba were launched from the Sinai - the second such attack in the last three months. Egypt has denied the allegation arguing that its border with Israel is heavily monitored. Egyptian security forces have nonetheless launched a security sweep of Sinai, acknowledging that Palestinian and Bedouin groups are active in the region. Egyptian and Israeli authorities charge that Bedouin tribesmen are part of a smuggling network that tunnels supplies into the Gaza Strip and sneaks African migrants across the border into Israel. In an ominous development, the attacks signal increased militant activity in the Sinai and radicalization of local Bedouin groups. The rocket incident adds to mounting tension on Israel’s borders in a week in which Israeli and Lebanese forces clashed for the first time since Israel attacked the Lebanese Shiite militia Hizbollah in 2006 and Arab states are seeking to ensure that an international inquiry into the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri that reportedly will point the finger at Hizbollah operatives does not plunge Lebanon into renewed civil strife. The rocket attack was launched barely two weeks after Egyptian Interior Minister Habib Adli agreed in a meeting with tribal leaders to release scores of detained Bedouins, including prominent activist and blogger Mossad Abu Fajr, in a bid to ease tension with the Sinai residents and neutralize Bedouin threats to sabotage oil and gas pipelines, including a natural-gas line that supplies Israel. In return for cooperation in apprehending terrorists, the government also promised to rollback repressive measures and initiate development projects that would create jobs in the Sinai. In June, security forces clashed with Bedouins after a police operation to capture unidentified fugitives failed. Egypt has long had difficulty in maintaining law and order in the Sinai, crucial to the country’s tourism industry. In 2004, twin bombings at resorts in Taba and Ras al-Shitan killed at least 34 people. A year later, 88 people died in bomb attacks in Sharm el Sheikh, and in 2006 at least 23 people were killed in blasts in Dahab. Bedouins, cooperating with various militant groups, including Hamas, Hizbollah and Al-Qaeda linked cells, are believed to have been involved in the attacks.