In parallel to these gestures of defiance a number of street protests have also taken place. Although these initially suffered from low turnouts, seemingly due to fear of reprisals by security forces, by April 2011 they had gathered pace and increasingly resembled those in Bahrain and Oman. Unsurprisingly, the largest protests were taking place in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. In some instances several hundred protestors were convening, especially in the Shia-dominated town of Qatif, with most calling for improved human rights and greater political reforms. A protest of more than 200 Saudi nationals also took place in the town of Awwamiya, despite a fatwa having been announced the day before by the government-backed Council of Senior Religious Scholars which stated that demonstrations were against Sharia law. Significantly, the Awwamiya protestors turned out to condemn the Saudi military’s role in Bahrain and in particular the alleged Saudi involvement in the destruction of Shia mosques there.[896]
The regime’s response to these challenges has thus far been multipronged, much like the responses in Bahrain and Oman, with a mixture of threats, violence, appeasement, and increased government largesse. Having had to imprison some 160 political prisoners in the first two months of the protests,[897] the king moved quickly to announce the establishment of a new anti-corruption commission while at the same time promising thousands of new public sector jobs. However, the majority of these jobs were viewed as strengthening the kingdom’s security sector as 60,000 were earmarked for the Ministry for Interior — already one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest employers.[898] In a massive ramping up of the wealth distribution strategy, a raft of new subsidies and public sector salary increases was also announced. Estimated to have cost over $130 billion, which included some $14 billion worth of bonuses paid out to civil servants and a new $530 per month unemployment benefit, the package was clearly intended to provide the majority of Saudi nationals with a temporary panacea in order to insulate them from any further impact from the Arab Spring. To some extent this seemed to work, as by May 2011 a 58 per cent year-on-year increase in consumer spending was reported, as many Saudis began to enjoy their windfalls.[899]
As 2011 progressed and protests continued unabated, especially in Eastern Province, it became evident that these measures would be insufficient to quell all unrest in the kingdom. As with Bahrain, there were reports that the Saudi authorities were seeking foreign mercenaries to join their security forces. In June 2011 a noted Saudi scholar claimed that ‘the Saudis are doing the same [as Bahrain], trying to invite Indonesia and Malaysia to send military troops to protect the monarchy, and we see that from Jordan as well’.[900] Similarly it was reported by Al-Jazeera that the chairman of the Saudi National Security Council[901] had made ‘two quiet trips to Pakistan to seek their support in case protests erupted at home’. With the Pakistani media claiming that the Pakistani prime minister[902] had told the Saudi visitor that ‘…his country supported the Saudi stance in the Gulf and the Middle East and would stand by Riyadh for regional peace’, one observer remarked that ‘the potential need for foreign troops in case protests spiral out of control has forced the Saudis to work with the current Pakistani civilian government for whom they have nothing but utter contempt’.[903]
By this time a number of hastily introduced new laws had also come into effect, most of which aimed to limit the kingdom’s increasingly vocal opponents’ use of the media and especially the internet. A decree was issued in late April 2011 that amended the kingdom’s existing press and publications law so as to prohibit all expression, including online comments, that ‘contradicted the rulings of Sharia law’ along with ‘anything that called for disturbing the country’s security, or its public order, or serves foreign interests that contradict national interests’. Moreover, seemingly fearing a backlash against the controversial fatwa, the new law also consolidated the position of the religious establishment by announcing a prohibition on ‘violating the reputation, dignity, or the slander of the Grand Mufti… and members of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars’. By also prohibiting the defamation of ‘any other government official or government institution’, and preventing the ‘publishing without consent of proceedings from any investigations or court trials’, the law effectively elevated senior members of the ruling family above criticism and legitimised the already rampant practice of secret court proceedings. Described by Human Rights Watch as ‘eviscerating any gains in freedom of expression under [the king’s] reign’, the law was accused of ‘effectively throwing the kingdom back to a time when dissent of any sort resulted in arrest’.[904]
Although the financial penalties for infringing the law are very high — now approximately $130,000[905]—a number of bloggers and journalists covering the ‘red line’ topics have also been imprisoned since its introduction. These include a writer[906] who documented the various arrests that had taken place in the Eastern Province and the peaceful nature of a candle-lit march by female protestors in Qatif; and two young men[907] who were seized after they blogged about the early protests in February and March 2011. Considered by Human Rights Watch as ‘having brought the climate for reform in Saudi Arabia to freezing point’ the arrests have also been viewed as clear evidence that ‘the Saudi ruling family shows no signs that it might ease its iron grip on the right to express political opinions’.[908] Most dramatically, in early 2012 it became apparent that a young Saudi journalist[909] who had been arrested in Malaysia, to where he had fled, was likely to face the death penalty upon his extradition to the kingdom. Having posted tweets that were deemed blasphemous by the Council of Senior Religious Scholars on the grounds that they revealed his uncertainties about the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings, he had also posted controversial tweets in defence of women’s rights in the country, including one that stated ‘No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice’.[910]
Moves have also been made to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s anti-terror legislation even further in an effort to legitimise the arrests of opposition figures and other activists. Indeed, in July 2011 Amnesty International claimed that a secret new anti-terror decree was being drawn up by the Saudi authorities in order to ‘strangle peaceful protest’ and ‘pave the way for even the smallest acts of peaceful dissent to be branded terrorism’. Having seen a classified copy of the draft law, the BBC confirmed that the proposed changes would allow for even more lengthy detention of suspects without trial (for over 120 days at a time), would further restrict their legal access, and would likely increase the use of the death penalty. Moreover, any questioning of the integrity of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family would become an offence automatically punishable by a minimum of ten years in prison. This has led Muhammad Fahad Al-Qahtani,[911] the co-founder of Saudi Arabia’s Civil and Political Rights Association to claim that ‘[the law] will give an open hand for the minister of the interior to do whatever he wants to do. Basically he will be controlling the judiciary, controlling the public prosecutor, he’s in charge already of the prison system, and there is no way to get a fair trial’.[912]
911
115. Not to be confused with Muhammad Al-Qahtani, the alleged twentieth 9/11 hijacker, who is currently in detention in Guantanamo Bay.