{"id":7182,"date":"2012-03-15T10:06:41","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T17:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=7182"},"modified":"2012-03-15T10:06:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T17:06:41","slug":"saudi-spring-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=7182","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Spring in the Making"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Saudi youth \u2018awakening\u2019?<\/strong>
\nPostnoon News – 15 March, 2012 <\/p>\n

Seventy percent of the Saudi population is under 30, and as many as 40 per cent of those young people are unemployed. According to the kingdom\u2019s own statistics, holding a college degree almost doubles the chances of failing to find a job.<\/p>\n

The frustration of being young and Saudi, led by a monarchy viewed by critics as arrogant, incompetent and repressive, is finally producing a youth protest movement in a country where public dissidence is exceedingly rare and severely punished.<\/p>\n

Last week 1,000 female students at King Khalid University rallied against the school\u2019s president after the university cancelled its cleaning services and garbage began to pile up and stink in the intense Saudi heat. The demonstration was dispersed with batons and water hoses, injuring more than 50 women. Then on Saturday an estimated 500 male students took up the cause, calling for the resignation of university president Abdullah Al-Rashid.<\/p>\n

Some of the protesters told media outlets that their demands were not political, expressing loyalty to Saudi King Abdullah.<\/p>\n

But local governor Prince Faisal bin Khaled condemned the protests, warning, \u201cWe will not be lenient with anyone, whoever may it be, who play with the security of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amnesty International reported this week that the Saudi government continues to incarcerate at least six men who had planned to take part in a \u2018Day of Rage\u2019 last March 11. Only one of the men is believed to have actually demonstrated and Amnesty\u2019s Middle East director Philip Luther said the year-long detentions were preposterous.<\/p>\n

\u201cHolding people for a year merely for intending to protest is completely unconscionable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has largely resisted the \u2018Arab Awakening\u2019 that swept the region in 2011, as the royal family used a combination of force and distribution of subsidies to nullify protest. King Abdullah has announced limited social and judicial reforms in recent years, including granting women the right to vote last September. But Saudi women are still banned from driving cars, running businesses or entering major government buildings and must cover themselves in head scarves and abayas in public.<\/p>\n

Saudi remains a highly conservative society rooted in the very conservative Wahhabist Islamic tradition and led in part by the ulema \u2014 a body of Islamic religious leaders. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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A Saudi youth \u2018awakening\u2019? Postnoon News – 15 March, 2012 Seventy percent of the Saudi population is under 30, and as many as 40 per cent of those young people are unemployed. According to the kingdom\u2019s own statistics, holding a college degree almost doubles the chances of failing to find a job. The frustration of more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2688],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7183,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7182\/revisions\/7183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}