All I will do is register my dismay that anyone could find the Sakharov Prize offensive.

I agree Heather, that the Saudi regime is one of the most brutal in the world. And by our coddling of them and weapons sales to them, the US and other western nations enable their brutality. The often ignored harm done by the military industrial complex is that not only does it push our own country into wars, but it seeds the rest of the world with lethal weapons for its own profit. Currently SA is using western made weapons to slaughter the long oppressed Houthi Shia minority in Yemen. The Saudis finance the madrassas that train terrorists around the world. 17 of the 19 9/11 terrorists were Saudi. Bin Laden was a Saudi. And yet we whisked the Saudis (including bin Ladens) out of the country after the attack so they wouldn’t experience any retaliation. Saudi Wahhabism has not only targeted the west, but also minority Shia in SA and throughout the Muslim world. That we regard them as allies rather than part of “the axis of evil” has to be one of the most corrupt political bargains in a corrupt political world. Why? Oil of course, but also because of their enmity to Iran and, I think, because of the Saudis implicit support of Israel. Israel has apparently decided it is in its interests to support the dominant Sunnis against the Shia in the mideastern civil war.

So yes, I’m all for exposing the Saudis human rights abuses. I just think we need to look past these media-driven high profile individual cases to the even more insidious role the Saudi princes, with their money and charm offenses, play in international affairs.

Well said AU: They “feel better about themselves by exposing the human rights abuses by The Other Side.

Or as Jesus (or Matthew, or whoever wrote the book of Matthew) said “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

I understand your frustration about human rights abuses in the West not being sufficiently exposed. We need to look at ourselves in the mirror more than we do.

There’s a hierarchy in the West of which countries are worse than others though, and as I live in one that is consistently named one of the best, I’m more secure about calling out others. Also, when my country gets it wrong, we do actually admit our mistakes and make efforts to fix it, not cover it up as seems more usual in the US and some other countries. For example, recently our SIS was doing stuff without the proper warrants – the director discovered it was happening through normal review processes and their systems are being fixed to make sure it can’t happen again, and the whole thing was admitted publicly.

We’re not perfect by any means, but there is a culture of what used to be called “continuous quality improvement”. (I don’t know if it’s still called that because I’ve been out of the system so long.) The focus is on finding problems and fixing systems so they can’t happen again rather than finding someone to blame (which seems to be the US system).

Any exposure of human rights abuses is a good thing imo, and it cannot be argued convincingly that Saudi Arabia isn’t one of the worst perpetrators. They deserve to be called out. As far as I’m concerned, their system need to change. Too many are suffering because of it. Also, the West has tended to ignore the appalling abuses there for political expediency, so it’s about time they started to call them out. As far as I’m concerned, it’s good to see it happening.

Maybe some day when this prize is awarded to someone who exposes the Human Rights abuses committed by the West the prize might actually take on some meaning.

There’s no difference in Saudi. It’s a theocracy, and doesn’t have a code of law in the way we understand it. It’s under Sharia, and they don’t have things like legal precedent, for example. The judge has all the power and decides what the charges are. That’s why there’s been a lot of pressure to charge him with apostasy – many consider that to hold the views he has, he must have abandoned Islam. This is why moderate, let alone liberal, Muslims have such trouble in that country – the Wahhabis are so dominant that anything “less” (if I can use that word) means you’re not a true Muslim.

From Badawi’s point of view, he was criticizing the way the government is run, and has always maintained he’s a committed Muslim. But in Saudi, that’s of course seen as criticizing Wahhabism. It’s a bit like Protestants vs Catholics in Europe in the 16th century imo.

Thanks, Heather. He’s our first, so new experiences all around.

Yeah. The Saudis need to give some payback. They’ve been getting more than they’ve been giving for a while.

That’s the sort of thing I like to hear! I’ll let you off. 🙂

Very exciting having a new grandchild too! Congratulations! 🙂