Saudi woman ecstatic over permission to ‘marry out’

From Arab News, quoting the Saudi Al-Madinah

Saudi Woman Ecstatic Over Permission to ‘Marry Out’
Arab News

MAKKAH, 15 August 2006 — A court here ruled in favor of a Saudi woman seeking to marry a non-Saudi, causing the forty-something woman to emit thrilling cries of bliss that echoed through the chamber, the daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday. The woman, who had been petitioning the court to permit her to get married to a non-Saudi, was so ecstatic at the decision that she not only screamed in joy but also jumped about embracing her relatives. In Saudi Arabia it can be very difficult for Saudi women to marry non-Saudis, which, to some Saudi women, is a very unfortunate thing — especially to older Saudi women who live in a society where many men taken on younger second wives, or divorce their older wives, often viewing older women as “expired goods.�

Paulin Kuanzambi

A day or two before we left Morocco, I went to say goodbye to Paulin Kuanzambi, an Angolan refugee in Morocco who now works with AFVIC (Amis et Familles des Victimes de l’Immigration Clandestine, “Friends and Families of Victims of Clandestine Migration”). Paulin had been great help to me in some stories I did for The World on migration in Morocco.

Paulin was out and I didn’t get to say goodbye. As I just found out, he had been entrapped into a meeting with members of the Moroccan secret service, who posed as journalists, then kidnapped him and another activist and drove them to the border with Algeria. You can a letter from AFVIC (in French) about it it after the jump.

This will be the fourth time that Paulin–who’s been officially recognized as a refugee by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees–is illegally kicked out of Morocco. The secret service agents took his money, hit him and his companion, and then showed them pictures of recent refugee sit-ins in front of the Moroccan office of UNHCR (see previous post on Arabist) and asked questions about the people involved.

I find it incredibly disturbing that the agents posed as journalists–then we wonder why refugees are often leery of the press!

I don’t understand why the Moroccan government–while hosting international conferences on migrants and their “rights”–treats a few thousand refugees on its soil like seditious criminals.

I also don’t understand why UNHCR seems so utterly incapable of fulfilling its mandate and protecting the people it has recognized as refugees. Unless the UNHCR office in Rabat–as the one in Cairo–has little sympathy for refugees who advocate for their rights (I was told that during a recent refugee sit-in, it was the UNHCR office itself that called the Moroccan police).
Continue reading Paulin Kuanzambi

Israeli soul-searching

When I saw this lead to a Washington Post article this morning, I was momentarily confused:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday acknowledged mistakes in the war against Hezbollah as the Israeli government confronted widespread criticism and political recriminations over the conflict.

“There have been failings and shortcomings,” Olmert, with deep circles under his eyes and a haggard look on his face, told a special session of the Israeli parliament. “We need to examine ourselves in all aspects and all areas. We will not sweep anything under the table, we will not hide anything. We must ensure that next time things will be done better.”

The article said that Israel was engaged in “national soul-searching.” For a moment, I thought they meant over the damage done to a neighboring country, the high civilian casualties. Silly me. Israeli society is engaged in “national soul-searching” over why they weren’t more successful in wiping out Hezbullah. Everyone’s souls are completely at peace regarding all those dead Lebanese.

And Netanyahu will be the next prime minister.

I have to stop

The New York Times’ coverage of the Lebanon war is a scab I can’t stop picking.

The latest, from Steven Erlanger, is as dumb-founding as always.

Written entirely from the strategic viewpoint of the Israeli government, this “news analysis” posits that the ceasefire depends on the Lebanese blaming Hezbullah for the damage the Israelis have done. If the Lebanese don’t turn on Hezbullah, and the UN doesn’t disarm the group, Israel will be forced to reinvade.

Erlanger ends with the following paragraph:

The Lebanese war also raises even more serious questions, suggests Shai Feldman, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis, about the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel respected the international border with Lebanon as verified by the United Nations, and it was Hezbollah that violated the border. “If international borders mean nothing,� Mr. Feldman asked, “why should the Israeli public support a withdrawal from the West Bank to create a Palestinian state?�

Preserving the idea of a two-state solution is one reason Mr. Olmert went to war, Mr. Feldman said. And it is one reason the Security Council acted as strongly as it did to defend the integrity of the international border and mandate an expanded United Nations force to protect it. But whether Israelis will trust those guarantees is yet another open question.

I must be dreaming. Israel is now the upholder of international borders? Israel invaded Lebanon to help further its plans to give the Palestinians a state? Did Mr. Erlanger ask Mr. Feldman about the many borders that Israel has crossed or erased? Did he point out that according to UN observers Israelis have crossed the Lebanese border about 10 times more often than Hezbullah has? Did he ask him if pounding Gaza as well as Lebanon is part of Israel’s hopes to establish a Palestinian state?

How can a New York Times reporter not only let an interviewee get away unchallenged with statements such as these, but go on to print them? The only answer I can find is: because the reporter is a propagandist.

Dr. Essam to be released

Finally Dr. Essam el-Erian is to be released, after he was detained during the pro-democracy demos last May.

Dr. Essam is someone I and many other secularists have so much appreciation for. He is a respectable citizen and a principled politician who should not have been taken away from his family and work, for demonstrating in support of Egypt’s judiciary, and thrown to the Tora dungeons.

Dr. Essam is one of the main forces in the Muslim Brotherhood that has been pushing the group towards moderation and endorsing democracy as the means to governance. The regular crackdowns the govt conducts against him and his colleagues only serves the cause of extremism and strengthens salafi factions in the group. I’m glad he is getting out.

Mabrouk ya doctor!

David, Girgis and Hussein… A Horror Film

I received this ad in my inbox about a play to be performed next week.

Horror is the word. Every person has his or her horror, and in our performance we speak out ours: Sectarian violence in Egypt. What if? The one-way street, where you meet nothing but the word…HORROR.

We invite you all to share us the horror by watching our performance, presented within the Independent Theatre Festival.

David, Girgis and Hussein…A Horror Film
Written by: Yasser Allam
Directed by: Sobhy el-Haggar
Maqha 87 Troupe

Sunday, 20th of August
On the Town House stage
At 09:00 pm

NB: To whom it may concern: this performance in the festival will not be the last; we wish to perform the play anywhere and everywhere, with or without money, lest anyone should not share the horror.

Call or email us:
+2 010-286-5169, yasseryallam -at- yahoo -dot- com

Bombed again

According to a reader familiar with New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh and his nameless friends are at it again this month.

If what Hersh reports being told by “a Middle East expert with knowledge� is correct, we have further evidence (like we needed it) of the crowded confusion that occupies Bush Jr.’s oval cuckoo’s nest. According to this expert, the invasion of Lebanon was a plan cooked up collaboratively with the White House, and one of the goals was to make the Lebanese government stronger.

The best laugh, however, comes from a “U.S. consultant with close ties to Israel� who says “The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits … It would be a demo for [an American strike on] Iran.�

Back in April Hersh wheeled the same anonymous cast on stage to assert that Cheney et al are forging ahead with plans bomb Iran back to the stone age, with nukes if at all possible. Hard to know what any of it’s worth when you don’t know who’s saying it, but a pleasant bit of echo-chamber reading for the pessimistic.