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Saudi Arabia chosen to head human rights panel whilst sentencing citizen to crucifixion

Saudi has just sentenced 5 unnamed individuals to death for the murder of Khashoggi.

Details on the BBC website ..
 
20 Saudi trainee military officers expelled from the USA. Suggestions that they were sympathetic to extremist groups; presumably Extinction Rebellion.

 
Three prominent princes arrested for plotting to overthrow the King. One of them is Ahmed bin Abdulaziz the King's brother. Saudi Arabia detains three royal family members in latest crackdown

He apparently returned only after the UK and the USA guaranteed his safety. The Al Jeera link is from the time of his return to the country



Suggestion here that the King might either have died or may be on his deathbed

 
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Was it the king or one of his successors who has been trying to "soften/liberalise/westernise"Saudi, but in any event, it seemed just a load of hot air. When I saw the new postings, I thought it was going to be about kidnapping, rendering and torturing his wives and grandchildren
:facepalm: :mad: :facepalm: :(
 
Was it the king or one of his successors who has been trying to "soften/liberalise/westernise"Saudi, but in any event, it seemed just a load of hot air. When I saw the new postings, I thought it was going to be about kidnapping, rendering and torturing his wives and grandchildren
:facepalm: :mad: :facepalm: :(

The Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman is the moderniser. He's the de facto ruler, having marginalised his uncles and cousins in what had effectively been a royal oligarchy with lots of diiferent centres of power and patronage. The modernisation has taking the form of transforming the country into a 1970's totalitarian dictatorship. Women can now drive, but Saudi feminists are in jail being tortured.

It's the Emir of Dubai who kidnaps, renders and tortures his children. He's been doing it for years but he's a chum of the Queen, so that's all right.


Video posted by Latifa the daughter of the Emir before she tried to escape

 
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The unfortunate thing is the House of Saud repellant as they are essentially the liberal forward thinking part of Saudi society.
Bit like the Shah of Iran was a massive bastard but miles better than the Islamic Republic he tortured and disappeared his critics. They torture and kill blasphemy hair showing? Blasphemy!
Things can get worse.
Their are critics of Saudi who aren't batshit reactionary Islamists but they aren't going to get their hands on power anytime soon.
 
The unfortunate thing is the House of Saud repellant as they are essentially the liberal forward thinking part of Saudi society.
Bit like the Shah of Iran was a massive bastard but miles better than the Islamic Republic he tortured and disappeared his critics. They torture and kill blasphemy hair showing? Blasphemy!
Things can get worse.
Their are critics of Saudi who aren't batshit reactionary Islamists but they aren't going to get their hands on power anytime soon.
They've sold you a line.
 
The unfortunate thing is the House of Saud repellant as they are essentially the liberal forward thinking part of Saudi society.
Bit like the Shah of Iran was a massive bastard but miles better than the Islamic Republic he tortured and disappeared his critics. They torture and kill blasphemy hair showing? Blasphemy!
Things can get worse.
Their are critics of Saudi who aren't batshit reactionary Islamists but they aren't going to get their hands on power anytime soon.

Well, the House of Saud/ the Saudi Royal family is no longer an important political entity in Saudi Arabia. The rise to power of Mohammed bin Salman has been accompanied by the destruction of the old oligarchic structure. After the coup de etat that resulted in the overthrow of King Saud in the early sixties power was divided between different princes and subfamilial factions. The King was obviously the King but different divisions of the armed forces and different provinces were under the control of his brother's and nephews. Succession to the throne has been fraternal rather than from father to son; Salman is the seventh son of AbdulAzziz the founder of the state to rule and there are at least two younger brothers capable of succeeding him. They have been forced from positions of authority and isolate from contact with the outside world; languishing in Saudi equivalent sof the Tower.

As to the Sauds in power ever being liberal and forward thinking, that's rubbish. The Sauds came to power backed by Wahhabi clerics and the regime in turn backed them both internally and in their missionary activities abroad. MBS does seem to be breaking away from that alliance but by modelling himself on totalitarian thugs like Hafeez Assad and Saddam. To the extent that opposition is possible there are Salafist critics of the regime, but probably the bigger threat to the regime has always been from the oppressed Shia in the East, the oil producing zone, and possibly Shia groups in the South West on the Yemeni border. Most young Saudis, who are a huge majority of the population would be loathe to give up the luxuries and freedoms brought to them by oil wealth that a stricter Wahhabi regime would bring. This is obviously most true for Saudi women who are becoming more assertive about claiming their rights and freedoms.
 
I only said they were liberal and forward-thinking compared to their likely replacements.:facepalm:.

As seen in Iran and Syria the shah was a bastard but the mullahs are worse only a tiny bunch of weirdos think Assad is a good guy but between him and is Assad all the way.
Osama and his mates came from Suadi and while the house of Saud is quite good at malleting the bastards and anyone they don't like who can be labeled al Queda no yellow card required though probably a mop and bucket.
in the event of a revolution who do you think would win a few million ordinary people or a couple of thousand double hard religious nutters who will kill anyone who stands in their way?
 
From today's Rag How Saudi Arabia's religious project transformed Indonesia
it smacks of a Television a few months or more back. No surprises. Saudi is becoming more hard line and is seeking Impose it's religion on the Phillipines...other than that, more of the same.

Thanks for the article. I don't understand your television comment though.

As for Saudi trying to impose it's religion on the Philippines...yeah, good luck with that. The Philippines is 98% Catholic with a tiny minority of IS type nutters in the south of the islands. If Saudi has tried to impose itself on Indonesia with apparently only limited success they have no chance of influence against the hard line Catholicism of the Philippines and the hard line Duterte who will always fight them off.

Tbh I think the headline of that article is clickbait and disingenuous.

I also think that article overstates the influence of Saudi in Indonesia. "Saudi Arabia didn't single-handedly cause the conservative turn in Indonesia, not by a long-shot" is buried halfway through the article but is probably one of the truest and most important lines in the whole read. If the Saudis had any real success there they wouldn't have fucked off, as they largely have.
 
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There was a programme on television a while back which looked at Saudi, how it was throwing it's money around, trying to spread the word and it's influence partly by financing schools, mosques etc.
 
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