Global Voices

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The world is talking, are you listening?

Nora Abdulkarim shares a Saudi-American perspective on the Boston Bombings.

She explains:

I won't try to simplify what is inherently complex. I will simply present and reflect, and nothing more. No fancy theorizing, no overarching message. This post is only meant to be a glimpse at personal identity – that wild thing which one cannot pin down.

At Riyadh Bureau, Ahmed Al Omran sums up Twitter reactions from Saudis living/studying in the US following the Boston Marathon bombings here.

Arwa al-Hujaili has become Saudi Arabia's first female legal trainee – or three years of apprenticeship ahead before she earns her full legal licensure to become a lawyer. Free Arabs has more here.

Saudi student Wael Omar Moathen shares this eyewitness account [ar] of his experience at the Boston Marathon bombing. Ahmed Al Omran offers a translation here: 

Like any human being who lives in this city, I picked up my camera and headed to Mile 26, the last mile in the race. I was taking photos and enjoying the cheers.

Click on the link above to read his experience as the horror unfolds.

Doha News charts reactions from Qatar residents following the aftershocks of an earthquake which hit southern Iran today. The aftershocks were also felt in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where offices in high rise buildings were evacuated.

On Riyadh Bureau, Ahmed Al Omran writes:

A member of the Saudi Shoura Council said today that he is going to sue a conservative writer for attacking him on Twitter. Shoura member Issa al-Ghaith said that “due to the escalation of offenses on Twitter and the necessity of legal action” he is going to sue Abdullah al-Dawood, a Saudi conservative writer based in Riyadh, for accusing him of “demanding secularism” after al-Ghaith spoke in positive terms about lifting the ban on women driving.

The Shura council is a 150-member advisory body, appointed by the king, which cannot pass or impose laws and women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.

US Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. is in the Saudi capital Riyadh – where he praised judicial reforms in the kingdom.

On Riyadh Bureau, Ahmed Al Omran writes:

The day before Holder’s press conference a Saudi court in Riyadh sentenced two prominent human rights activists to long jail terms and travel bans. Based on local media reports, there was no mention of the trial in the press conference.

For more on the activists’ trial, check out our Special coverage.

On January 23, 2013, an excerpt from the annual report of l'ACAT-France, A World of Torture 2013, makes a fresh assessment of the state of torture in the world [fr]:

“A report called A World of Torture in 2013, assesses torture practices that continue to be alarming, from Pakistan to Italy, by way of South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Bolivia. From authoritarian regimes to democratic countries, none are exempt from criticism on the topic. In 2013, torture remains as endemic, omnipresent and multi-faceted as ever”.

How many Saudi students study in the US? Check out Riyadh Bureau for an answer.

Asaad Abu Khalil posts this picture showing the car Saudi women would be allowed to drive

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‘The apostasy case against Saudi activist Raif Badawi has been dismissed, his lawyer Waleed Abu Alkhair said on Twitter today. “It was not proven to the judges that the accused has insulted God or the Prophet,” Abu Alkhair added.,’ reports Ahmed Al Omran on Riyadh Bureau.

M. Lynx Qualey, blogger, who is interested in Arab and Arabic literature, wrote a series of posts introducing acclaimed Arab poets, novelists, and short-story writers’ favorite Arab reads of 2012. She started with a list of nonfiction books, then followed by a list for poetry [En] and fiction [En].

Is the Saudi government monitoring women? Blogger Ahmed Al Omran tells us how it is done. He adds:

The problem is not that there is now an electronic system that sends an SMS when women travel. Some people might actually want this service. The problem is that the government is enforcing rules of male guardianships even on the rest of us who don’t believe in such rules. One day, MOI could choose to provide a checkbox in their system that says: “My female relatives don’t need my permission to travel.” That day, unfortunately, has not come yet.

“Gulf countries awfully quiet about Gaza,” tweets Foreign Policy editor Blake Hounshell. Lebanese journalist Antoun Issa adds:

@antissa: Amazing how eager GCC are to arm Arabs to fight each other, while disappearing completely when it comes to Palestine. #Gaza

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is made up of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

On Twitter, Saudi blogger Ahmed Al Omran shares a video reportedly from Qatif, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, last night.

@ahmed: VIDEO: “People want the fall of Al Saud,” women chant reportedly during a protest in Qatif last night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0H0esiTyCY … #SAUDI

More »

The Arabist shares statistics on Twitter users in the Arab world, where the overall number of active Twitter users across the entire region numbers 1.3 million. The largest number of active Twitter users live in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi filmmaker Mazen Al-Angary shares this documentary about Ramadan in Jeddah.

On Twitter, Adel Abdel Ghafar shares a photograph of a “Cover of a #Saudi book titled ‘ the best way to tell your wife that you married another woman.'”

While saluting the decision of Saudi Arabia to send two female athletes to the London Olympics, the Saudi Women Driving  deplores the fact that Saudi women cannot drive. “The whole world has been watching Saudi women and their triumphant appearance at the Olympics, and most news stories about them mention that they can't drive back home,”  it says.  The Blog of Amnesty International – USA  also notes”Evidently, Saudi Arabia has a long way to reach the finish line of ‘gender equality.’ Nevertheless, Sarah Attar’s 800 meter run at the 2012 Olympics certainly shortens the distance.”

Mideast Youth's Rola Khayyat posts a podcast featuring an interview with the Saudi author of Brownies and Kalashnikovs Fadia Basrawi.

On Twitter, @Detect_Dialect is pushing for Detect Dialect – a dialect-specific search tool for Arabic content on Twitter. In addition to Classic Arabic, Arabs speak their local dialects, which sometimes differ even between neighbouring villages. This new tool claims to detect the dialects of Gulf, Iraqi, Levant, Egyptian and Maghreb Arabs.

Saudi blogger Ahmed Al Omran tweets: “Hai'a [Saudi religious police] targets corniche-goers with a mobile mosque. If they can't force you to go to mosque, they bring mosque to you.”

Saudi blogger Eman Al Najfan shares her thoughts on Manal Al Sharif, a women's rights activist, in this post. “[I]n Saudi, there are many women and men who oppose how women are treated in Saudi, but rarely do you find someone who’s willing to come out in public and state their opposition,” she writes.

Saudi Arabia, one of Reporters Without Borders’ Internet Enemies, has blocked access to many articles on the free encyclopedia Wikipedia. The Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission has censored over 130 articles in Arabic and English, including articles relating to sex and sexuality, the human body, and the theory of evolution. You can find the full list of censored articles here.

Online accounts are frequently hacked and stolen. We often hear of those who hacked someone's email or stole someone's email password. Twitter is no different, so the Saudi tweep and blogger Manal Al-Sherif, who has worked as a Information Security Consultant in an oil company for years, shared her tips on how to protect Twitter accounts from being hacked [ar].

Revolution2East posts on YouTube this video from a protest in Qatif, Saudi Arabia, in which protesters, who include women, chant that they will not give up on demanding their rights.

A Facebook page [ar] has been created calling on Saudis to protest tomorrow (Thursday) and on Friday against financial and administrative corruption, the jailing of activists and the lack of justice, among other grievances. The page details are being circulated via Twitter by bloggers. Previous calls for protests in Saudi Arabia have failed to materialise into large scale demonstrations.

On Twitter, Arab Revolution shares a link to a video allegedly showing a Saudi protester in Qatif getting shot. The video is dated February 9.