SAUDI ARABIA:Yesterday's pardon reflects the ongoing tension in the kingdom between reform and clerical conservatism, writes Jeffrey Fleishmanin Riyadh
A recent court decision sentencing a gang-rape victim to 200 lashes for unIslamic behaviour has outraged a nation accustomed to harsh punishment, and has highlighted the slow pace of government reform since Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah rose to power two years ago.
Judges guided by their interpretation of the Koran insinuated that the married victim, known in the media here as the Qatif girl, was immoral because she was meeting another man when the pair were accosted by seven knife-wielding attackers. In November, she was sentenced to the lashing and to six months in prison; her assailants received five-year prison terms.
Yesterday, succumbing to domestic and international outrage, the king pardoned her.
Saudis are used to public beheadings of murderers and amputations of the hands of pickpockets, but the Qatif girl's ordeal embarrassed the country at a time when Riyadh was negotiating major international business deals and emerging as a potential broker in Middle East peace talks.
King Abdullah is widely regarded as a moderniser in a royal family balanced between those favouring reform and others who insist on maintaining a strict Wahabi interpretation of Islam.
Satellite TV and the internet have created a more open media, and the king has supported local elections, even if they offer only token democracy. But liberals and human rights activists complain that hardliners remain in control of the courts, ministry of interior and other government agencies. "Don't expect big changes and sudden successes, but reform has taken root," said Mishary Alnuaim, the vice-dean of law and political science at King Saud University. "Modernising religion is still slow. That's the million-dollar question."
Conservatives have been emboldened by increased global energy demands that have enriched the kingdom through high oil prices. Reliance on oil has tempered criticism from Washington and other western capitals over the lack of women's rights and the sweeping power of the Saudi state.
Some analysts say the king, while more progressive than much of his population, fears that hurried reforms could lead to public anger and possible religious revolt similar to that which brought down the Shah of Iran in the 1970s.
"You have a lot of dynamic change in Saudi Arabia. There's high unemployment, lost investments and a worried middle class," said Martrouk Al-Faleh, a university professor who has been jailed in the past for his reformist activities. "At the same time, the nation's elite feel no external pressure for reform because of strategic US and British business and oil interests."
There have been some encouraging signs, however. The quasi-legislative advisory body to the king, known as the Shura Council, appears to have gained influence. The monarch followed the council's suggestion to deny a 20 per cent pay raise to the country's religious police, known as mutaween, who patrol shopping malls chastising and arresting women who are not properly veiled. The decision signalled that the king was reining in a religious force many Saudis complained had become increasingly repressive.
Challenging the government, especially the judiciary and the interior ministry, can still lead to trouble. In November Abdullah Al-Hamid, a leading reformer and human rights activist, was sentenced to four months in prison on charges of obstruction of justice and for inciting a public protest against the treatment of alleged terrorists held in Saudi prisons for two years without charges or trials. Al-Hamid's brother, Issa, was sentenced to six months on similar charges.
"The verdict against the Al-Hamid brothers shows that the Saudi government's talk of human rights reform is just that - talk," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch.
Abdullah Al-Hamid, who represented the wives of the accused, was arrested in July after demanding that security police present a search warrant before entering the home of one of the women, who also was his relative. He has appealed his sentence. In 2005 Abdullah Al-Hamid, Al-Faleh and other activists had been pardoned by King Abdullah after serving 16 months on sentences that ran from six to nine years on convictions for criticising the government and calling for parliamentary elections.
Reforming the judiciary is one of the most sensitive political dilemmas facing the king. The Saudis have parallel legal systems - one of civil regulations and the other a more prominent Sharia system based on strict adherence to the Koran. Criminal cases, including the rape of the Qatif girl, are presided over by religiously conservative judges who hold that holy texts are not bound by civil or man-made laws.
Despite discussion of merging the two systems, the religious judges hold tremendous sway; they represent a form of Islam that has kept the royal family in power for generations. They are also regarded by many Saudis as the only check and balance on the monarchy. Yet their decisions draw frequent condemnation from international humanitarian groups and from Saudi activists for disregarding the rights of women, who are forbidden from driving or voting and face restrictions on employment, dress and place in the family.
In November a court found that the Qatif girl violated Islam by being in the company of a man not her husband. She was sentenced to 90 lashes.
When she appealed the case and went public with her ordeal, the judges suspended her lawyer's court licence and increased her sentence to six months in prison and 200 lashes.
Saudi writer Sultan Al-Qahtani posted an essay on the internet suggesting the royal family was preparing to move against the judiciary: "The controversy over the Girl of Qatif sentence might lead to a strong push for the government, which is inclined toward reform, to confront the other elements that insist the kingdom maintain its extreme religiosity."
Other Saudi writers and commentators, in a rare outburst of criticism, said the sentence, which is under government review, has embarrassed the nation. Lubna Hussain wrote in an opinion piece in the Saudi-based Arab News: "The judges looked into their crystal ball and saw that she had 'the intention of doing something bad' and this, therefore, constituted a very good reason for her to be gang-raped. Always the woman's fault, but of course!"