Contradiction in Action: The Eulogies for King Abdullah

[polly7]

Last edited Mon Jan 26, 2015, 02:16 AM - Edit history (1)

by Binoy Kampmark / January 24th, 2015

It did not take long for various news agencies to pick up that Saudi Arabia, prior to a 2013 law banning terrorist financing, had been at the forefront of Sunni funding for a colourful assortment of so-called enemies of the free world. A US cable from the WikiLeaks Public Library of US Diplomacy, titled “Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance” (December 30, 2009) is illuminating on that precise point.

The gender side of the commemorations were also somewhat skewed. Head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, was a test case that silence can, indeed, prove golden – when exercised with judiciousness. Instead, she decided to volunteer a view that King Abdullah had been “a strong advocate for women. It was a very gradual, appropriately so probably for the country.” The great moderniser was, after all, averse to letting his daughters out, keeping them under lock and key for taking issue with stifling, and overwhelming male guardianship.

It all proved a bit much for the former British MP and conservative Louis Mensch, who made a few ripples with a resounding, albeit social media driven “F***K YOU” to Cameron’s ingratiating behaviour to the House of Saud. “It is so unacceptable to offer deep condolences for a man who flogged women, didn’t let them drive, saw guardian laws passed, & STARVES THEM” (emphasis in original).

As for the issue of preventing women from driving in the kingdom, The Independent found it fitting to publish a story taken from former Saudi Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Cole’s memoir, Ever the Diplomat. When visiting Balmoral as a Crown Prince in September 1998, Abdullah was greeted to an astonishing spectacle: the Queen of England taking the wheel of a Land Rover.

While it would be remiss to point out that no single leader can dictate the entirety of a political system, it remains difficult to call King Abdullah, by any stretch of the imagination, a great, let alone subtle “moderniser”. Public beheadings, the sentencing of Raif Badawi to a thousand lashes and ten years in prison for being critical of the state, and injunctions on the construction of non-Islamic places of worship within the country, suggest the workings of a distinctly anti-modern entity rooted in firm tribalism.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/01/contradiction-in-action-the-eulogies-for-king-abdullah/


Saudi Arabia executes 19 in one half of August in 'disturbing surge of beheadings'

....

The men were all part of the same family and their deaths were condemned by Amnesty as being part of the “disturbing” surge in executions. Reuters reported that their confessions may have been obtained through torture.

Mohammed bin Bakr al-Alawi was beheaded on 5 August for allegedly practicing black magic sorcery, the Saudi Gazette reports, while according to Amnesty, a mentally ill man, Hajras al-Qurey, has been sentenced to death for drug trafficking “after an unfair trial” and will be killed on 25 August.

Al-Qurey’s son had reportedly confessed to drug smuggling and said that his father was unaware that the contraband was in the car.

The elder claims to have been beaten into confessing, despite repeatedly exclaiming that he was innocent and that he suffered a mental disability. He was held criminally liable despite an examination finding symptoms of mental illness including auditory hallucinations.

Amnesty Int'l: “The death penalty is always wrong, and it is against international law to use it in cases involving non-lethal crimes and where evidence used to convict the person is based on ‘confessions’ extracted as a result of torture.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-executes-19-during-half-of-august-in-disturbing-surge-of-beheadings-9686063.html

"King Abdullah was a man of wisdom & vision". "world has lost a revered leader".



Terrible loss!, and what is it with this torture fetish and mourning those who used it?

[fasttense]

1. Since when are feudal dictators people to be admired???

Oh wait..... always?

I thought the world had evolved past the ignorance and stupidity of feudalism. But I was wrong.