Rightist Wish Fulfillment

Arab News (With thanks to Jihad Watch, 22 March 2005, for pointing out this article), Monday, 21, March, 2005 (10, Safar, 1426) , Ministry Intervenes as Writer Sentenced to 275 Lashes
Raid Qusti, Arab News —

We have kept this bizarre tale around, well, because it is bizarre. It also illustrates why it is so great to be an American and to live in America. It also illustrates why we can take sides with the liberal Left on this issue. Wow! That last is really strange to write!

Too many on the Right whip themselves these days into lather after lather decrying "separation of church and state." Their fictions include the notion that separation of church and state is actually a Christian concept coming from the dictum to render unto Caesar, and you know the rest. They also claim that America was founded on strict Judeo-Christian principles and doctrines. Then they march to the Constitution to claim that nothing in it separates church and state, thus we ought to have prayer in schools, etc. They claim that without Judeo-Christian principles, there could be no morality, only rapacious chaos.

Alas they are so full of it that one wonders what would happen to them should they all take enemas en masse.

They cannot quite bring themselves to advocate a theocracy, although one of their number, talk radio host Michael Medved, proudly bills himself as a theocrat.

They, like so many people, have "bee hive minds." By that, we mean that their minds are like honeycomb, in with each cell exists completely separately from the next in a hexagonal mass. I.e., with these people, integration seems forbidden as does direct perception of reality.

So, let's look at some reality, from a theocracy. We must realize that there are not good theocracies to contrast with bad theocracies. Theocracies are totalitarian states which are profoundly anti-individual, anti-rights, anti-reason, anti-freedom and demand that their citizens serve as cells in the organ mass of the state which is also their only reason to exist and the source of any value they might have as individuals.

This article provides direct perception into reality, in this case into the theocracy of Saudi Arabia. It could just as easily been from Iran or medieval Christendom.

RIYADH, 21 March 2005 — The case of a Saudi writer who was sentenced by a
Shariah court in Riyadh to 275 lashes and four months imprisonment after being
accused of being “corrupt” by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has returned to the Ministry of Culture and Information yesterday after the intervention of the ministry, Arab News has learned.

The case is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Ali Al-Mizeini, an Arabic language professor at King Saud University, was charged by the commission with allegedly questioning the religious institution’s abilities and knowledge in an article written by him in Al-Watan
newspaper. The commission was represented in court by another professor at the
university, Abdullah Al-Barak from the Islamic Culture Department.

The accusers demanded that Dr. Al-Mizeini be tried according to Shariah for
his writings. Dr. Al-Mizeini was later summoned to a court hearing.

Dr. Al-Barak argued that his suit against Al-Mizeini was a private matter and that he relied on a regulation from the Ministry of Justice dated Oct. 16, 2004, after some persons complained about several articles published in the media. The regulation issued by the minister of justice states that “whatever offends Shariah or Islamic ethics or contradicts anything in the Qur’an or Sunnah (the Prophet’s sayings) or is an accusation of a person toward another which demands a religious punishment of lashes or imprisonment according to the nature of the crime is a matter that concerns public
courts.”

The regulation continues: “Public courts or primary courts which are given cases that deal with offenses concerning moral issues or attacks on Shariah that demand religious punishment should not transfer it to other concerned lawful bodies to look into it”

Judge Suleiman Al-Fantooh of the Shariah court sentenced him to a four-month jail term and 275 lashes.

The judge’s ruling violates the Royal Decree No. 37 of the publication law in Saudi Arabia issued in November, 2000, which states that Shariah courts in the Kingdom should not intervene in trying journalists or writers and that all matters concerning the media and publications should be dealt with through the Ministry of Information.

The judge, however, ignored the law and proceeded with his ruling.

According to Al-Hayat newspaper, the Royal Court issued an order to form a committee comprising officials from the Ministry of Information to deal with matters that concern publication of articles in local newspapers and that all complaints concerning publications should be confined to the ministry alone.

The Arabic daily also said that the Ministry of Culture and Information called editors of Saudi dailies and informed them of the new Royal Court regulation by phone. It said that the ministry intended to send a telegram to the Ministry of Justice opposing the court ruling because it violates the publishing law announced by the government last week.

Al-Mizeini’s article angered many Islamists when he said that the method used by the Supreme Judiciary Council in determining the beginning of Ramadan and Eid was “primitive” that still relied on the naked eye’s vision of the moon at a time where the crescent can be determined by telescopes as well by Saudi astronomers who are experts in the field.

Meanwhile, another Saudi writer is being tried by a religious court in the Kingdom for criticizing the commission in another Saudi daily, Al-Jazirah.

Abdullah Al-Bikheit, the writer, published many articles in the daily criticizing the
approach of the people who work for the commission. Arab News contacted the
writer who revealed his story. “In the beginning, I got a call from the police
department to appear in the station to deal with a case filed by a person I did
not know,” he said.

“When I went there and asked who my opponent was, I was told that ‘it did not matter and that I will have to appear in court’ which I did,” he added.

“When I appeared before the judge, I found out that the case filed against me was not signed by a certain number of people...I asked the judge again who my opponent was, but he did not give me an answer. He told me that the Public Prosecutor wanted to intervene in the case. I replied that the case had no basis since it concerned publications and that the case was not within their purview.”

“The Sheikh from the Public Prosecution office later came, and I found myself yet dealing with another person. He told the judge that ‘we want to punish him if the charges against him are proven correct’”.

“I later found out that 80 percent of those who filed the case were members of the commission who were angered by my writings in the daily,” he said.

He said that the court has asked him to reappear on April 12.

Asked by Arab News if anyone from the Ministry of Information intervened to help him, Al-Bikheit said that he was sure that the media was closely following his case. He also said that Turki Al-Sudairi, the head of the Saudi Journalists Association, promised him that he would help. Al-Bikheit said that he has not sought the help of the National Society for Human Rights in the court hearing since he has already told the judge that the case is out of the court’s jurisdiction.

“However, if a ruling is made against me in the next hearing, I need not go to the human rights body to complain. I will go to our leaders to complain starting with King Fahd, then the Crown Prince,” he said.

Al-Bikheit said that he criticized the commission in the Saudi daily as “any other government body that has its shortcomings.” He said that he replied to the negative feedback to his articles in the letters to the editor column of the paper which did not “please the commission’s members”. He intends to publish a book with all the 17 articles he has published in Al-Jazirah.

The old admonition says, be careful what you wish for because it may come true. Those on the Right who have religious blindness need a big dose of this admonition. A few years ago, Jack Kemp, serving in some Republican administration, crowed that "Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion." The article just cited shows a tiny sample of what Kemp's thinking (and that of those who think similarly) looks like in practice in Saudi Arabia, a theocracy.

Whatever value religion has to an individual must be determined by that individual and not by the state. That individual should be free to have religion or not. The state should not reflect any aspect of any religion, nor should it proscribe or prescribe any, it as long as it is not seditious, as is Islam.

Islam is the archtypical fusion of religion with every single aspect of Muslim life, and what we see as a result is not something "hijacked" or distorted. It is what it is. Islam is a perfect manifestation of the dream of those Rightists who want to end separation of church and state. In that sense, they are just another group of jihadists.