Human Rights in Saudi Arabia - Case Study Example

Section/# Human Rights in Saudi Arabia: A Case Study and Review The exhibition of human rights around the globe is an issue that should interest each and every individual in the world. Whereas it may not seem that human rights have a great deal of impact with regards to how an individual in a free society lives his/her life, the reality of the situation is the fact that the increasing interconnectedness and interrelatedness of the world as a means of globalization places a necessary ethical burden upon societal stakeholders to understand and seeks to ameliorate the hardship and suffering of fellow human beings the world over. One of the most interesting dynamics of the lack of human rights within the current world model is the fact that the understanding of human rights in the Western world is ultimately something of a public relations game. This is quite unfortunate due to the fact that the lives and happiness, as well as health and safety, of millions of individuals around the world are affected by flagrant human rights abuses and some of the most oppressive and repression regimes on earth. What is meant by this statement that the understanding of human rights within the Western world is something of a public relations game relates to the fact that the nations in which the West regularly integrates and has close business/economic interests are relatively unbothered by human rights complaints from the outside world. In such a way, the sad reality of the situation is that many nations within the Western and/or developed world have the unique opportunity to bring about societal and systemic change within nations that exhibit a very poor track record of human rights. However, rather than leveraging their respective positions as a means of bettering the lives of individuals the world over, oftentimes these nations choose instead to continue the beneficial relationships they have with oppressive and repressive regimes. In such a way, upsetting the status quo, which is ultimately highly beneficial, is deemed more risky to the stability and profitability of the current system than is attempting to directly integrate with the problem and solve it through a variety of different means. Within such an understanding, this particular analysis will focus a level of discussion and analysis upon the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In such a way, the author will attempt to analyze the current situation with regards to human rights and Saudi Arabia; analyzing the way in which human rights is portrayed in the media, both domestic Saudi media and world media, discuss the issue of censorship within Saudi Arabia, and analyze the means by which alternative media/social media has allowed the Saudi individuals, and those arguing for a greater degree of human rights liberalization, a platform in which to adequately have their message the past. Furthermore, as a function of analyzing each of these aspects, it is the hope of this author that reader will come to a more full and complete understanding of the way in which human rights are currently exhibited within Saudi Arabia as well as the means by which individuals within and without Saudi Arabia understand these can rights, and the level to which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is willing to go in order to respond to the unique needs that are being exhibited within the Kingdom. Before delving directly into specific human rights abuses that Saudi Arabia is guilty of, it must be understood that Sharia law defines the way in which the nation’s judiciary operates. Ultimately, appreciating an understanding of the nuances of Sharia law would require a dissertation length response. However, for purposes of this brief analysis, it can and should be understood that Sharia law most necessarily refers to the law that is lain out in the Koran; Islam’s most holy book. Moreover, due to the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not have a Constitution, the rights and privileges to which the accused is beholden is necessarily solely defined within the Koran. Further, within such an understanding of the fundamental and formative role in which Islam lays in the application of justice within the Saudi judiciary, the reader should also understand that the traditional representation and trial by jury is not an aspect of Saudi law. Rather, judges are appointed to handle each and every case that comes before them. In such a way, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia represents a complete antithesis to the traditional Western interpretation of the way in which justice is meted out. Due to its strict and rather insular understanding of Sharia law, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not merely violate human rights on a single level; rather, they are in violation of basic human rights upon a litany of different levels to include: the application of the death penalty for crimes as diverse as robbery, rape, drug use,, adultery, witchcraft, and sorcery. However, besides violation of basic human rights within the sphere of capital punishment in the crimes that are punished with such an extreme manner of beheading, there exists corporal punishment for a litany of other crimes which can include but is not limited to amputation of hands feet and public caning. Furthermore, severe abrogation of human rights is evidenced with regards to the way in which women are treated as compared to men. Though women make up nearly 70% university in enrollees within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, they account for only 5% of the total workforce. Furthermore, whereas 84% of Saudi men are literate, only around 70% of women are (Krivenko 107). Likewise, as nearly everyone is aware, the right of a woman to be in public on their own, or too drive for oneself is also severely restricted. Although the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia claims that this is done as a means of protecting the tradition of Islam and adhering rigidly to the rules and mores laid down by the prophet Mohammed and his disciples, the fact of the matter is that this provides a distinct disadvantage and inhuman treatment for nearly 50% of the entire Saudi population. Similarly, religious freedom is all but nonexistent and Saudi Arabia. Due to the fact that the entire nation’s government is based upon fundamental understanding of Islam, the ability to freely practice alternative religions is highly frowned upon. As one might expect, gay rights is not only nonexistent, but the practice of homosexuality risks imprisonment, and even capital punishment according Sharia law. With regards to the way in which human rights are evidenced in the media of Saudi Arabia, this can be understood as ultimately a question of self censorship. Due to the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has complete and total control over the media apparatus as well as complete and total control of the judiciary, it is something of an easy task to misrepresent the overall level of human rights that exist. A perfect example of this misrepresentation can of course be evidenced with regards to the way in which the Saudi government has started and continues to fund an organization known as the National Society for Human Rights. Ultimately, this agency is supposedly assigned to serve as a watchdog over the efficacy and legitimacy of the way in which Saudi jurisprudence takes place. However, the reality of the matter is that the National Society for Human Rights is nothing more than a propaganda front for the government. Evidence of this can of course been noted regards to the way in which the National Society for Human Rights responded to inquiries with regards to the drastically increased level of beheadings that took place in 2011 as compared to previous years (Human Rights 56). In response, the National Society for Human Rights indicated that the main determinant for the nearly twofold increase in the number of beheadings taking place in 2011, as compared to years previously, was merely due to the fact that the nation itself was experiencing something of a crime wave (Alwasil 1077). In such a way, the interweaving dynamic that exists between supposedly nongovernmental actors operating within Saudi Arabia and government illustrates and helps to underscore the level and extent the government is able to completely control the representation that it generates the populace. Moreover, state control of the media ensures that no negative representation of the human rights record of the kingdom will be demonstrated viewer/reader. However, if one is to view the way in which the government apparatus within Saudi Arabia treats the issue of human rights with anything similar to the sustained outrage, they would do well to consider the way in which the remainder of the world deals with issues of Saudi human rights abuse. Taking the example of the United Kingdom and the United States, these are two nations that have traditionally displayed courage with illuminating key human rights issues around the globe. Evidence of this can of course be seen with regards to the way in which the developed Western nations oftentimes chide the People’s Republic of China for its abysmal human rights record. Evidence of this can further be seen with the way in which Western nations typically expressed concern over the fate of political dissidents in parts of Eastern Europe and the Russian Federation. Further evidence still can be seen with regards to how Western nations typically drama up support for nations such as Myanmar that have suffered through approximately 30 years of a strict and rigid military junta. However, somewhat surprisingly, the Western and developed nations of the world have remained almost invariably silent with regards to the human rights record of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Whereas the underlying cause of this may not be surprising, the realization of the extent to which this is practiced is nothing short shocking. One might hope that Western and/or developed nations would seek to express the same level of outrage with regards to the human rights abuses that take place in the People’s Republic of China as they would with human rights abuses that daily take place within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, due to be distinctly close cooperation and economic dependence that these Western democracies rely upon the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, no such similar outrage is evidenced. Whereas it is difficult for a single week to go by without the New York Times, the Telegraph, or some other world-renowned bastion of journalism severely berating human rights records of nations that stands in stark opposition to the democracies of the Western world, almost nothing is said with regards to Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses. Not only is this an unfortunate reality, it exhibits the two-faced nature that Western democracies exhibit within international relations and business/global affairs (Fitzgerald 1). Naturally, an understanding of the strategic importance of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia with regards to its vast oil and gas resources must be considered as the primary determinant for such an indifferent response. Nevertheless, a changing dynamic is being witnessed within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Whereas the preceding analysis has been focused upon the level to which government and supra-governmental censorship, both imposed and self-imposed, has shortened the ability of the individual citizens to express themselves and gain inference with regards to what is actually taking place within their own system, the development and growth of the Internet has provided the gateway that many Saudi’s have desired as a means of speaking out. As was evidenced during be Arab Spring in places as diverse as Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, the role and extent to which social media played in helping to organize and differentiate key aspects of these revolutionary movements was profound. Saudi Arabia, like many other totalitarian regimes, has made it a main priority of its security services and police to regulate and punish individuals within the system that actively criticize the government via social media or via the Internet in general. However, the truth of the matter is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the government to seek to police the seemingly boundless scope of the Internet. Additionally, Saudi citizens that are interested in affecting higher levels of human rights and change from within have begun utilizing more advanced software and IP blocking devices as a means of securing their true identity when interacting with fellow Saudi’s by a means of social media and other means. What this is created is a continual game of cat and mouse by which the police of the Internet within Saudi Arabia are perennially petrified that systemic change may occur as a result of a groundswell of popular agitation with regards to the level of repression and overall lack of human rights that are exhibited throughout the system. Although the analysis has thus far been concentric upon the ways in which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia tramples upon traditional understandings of rights, the means by which individuals within the system seeks change these dynamics, and the level of overall complexity that the rest of the developed world seems to integrate this reality, there is one further dynamic that is born out of these three. This final dynamic is with regards the fact that the increase in use of the Internet and the increasing way in which individuals within Saudi Arabia are expressing discontent and displeasure at the means by which human rights are exhibited has measurably facilitated increase of liberalization within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Although to an outside observer Saudi Arabia is still exceedingly conservative, the fact of the matter is that reforms are being instituted on nearly a yearly basis. For instance, pressure from inside as well as outside Saudi Arabia has facilitated the overall level of capital punishment cases being halved from their high in 2011. Furthermore, women within Saudi Arabia are slowly but surely taking a more active role within society as a whole (Mtango 54). Granted, this should not be understood to mean that as a result of societal discontent expressed via the Internet the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has begun to experience a fundamental shift, the reality of the matter is that key changes are slowly but surely being effected; doubtless as a means of seeking to reduce the level of malcontents that exists within the system. Understanding that the kingdom cannot continue to survive as long as an agitated/frustrated minority exists and demands further rights and representation, the stakeholders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the royal family, have most certainly begun to in situ slow and gradual reforms. The take away from all of this is the understanding that whether or not a system represents an abysmal human rights record and whether or not the rest of the world is willing to take a stand against that power and demand that improvements are made, the role in which the individual citizen has in nonviolent revolution via such diverse and means as twitter and/or Facebook, has a profound effect upon the way in which the system itself is exhibited and the vaults. This understanding of course underscores the importance to which the individual citizen and his/her participation within such a process, regardless of the level of democracy which is exhibited, is profound. Works Cited Alwasil, Abdulaziz M. "Saudi Arabias Engagement In, And Interaction With, The UN Human Rights System: An Analytical Review." International Journal Of Human Rights 14.7 (2010): 1072-1091. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 May 2013. Fitzgerald, Andrew. "Saudi Arabia vs. China: America cant play favorites with human rights." Christian Science Monitor 28 Mar. 2013: N.PAG. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 May 2013. "Human Rights." Saudi Arabia Country Review (2012): 52-55. Business Source Premier. Web. 9 May 2013. Krivenko, Ekaterina Yahyaoui. "Islamic View Of Womens Rights: An International Lawyers Perspective." Journal Of East Asia & International Law 2.1 (2009): 103-128. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 May 2013. Mtango, Sifa. "A State Of Oppression? Womens Rights In Saudi Arabia." Asia-Pacific Journal On Human Rights & The Law 5.1 (2004): 49-67. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 May 2013. Read More