NEWSBYEMAN AL NAFJAN

Common sense tells us if it ain't broke don't fix. Unfortunately the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information, MOCI, seems to be lacking in the common sense department.

Since last September, the MOCI's spokesperson, Mr. Abdulrahman al-Hazzaa has been talking about how the ministry will soon unveil a system that will organize the internet. Yes, somehow this Saudi ministry believes that it can do the impossible. Despite a lot of objections to the proposal, on the first day of 2011, the ministry announced this groundbreaking new system. An English translation and commentary are available here. What's funny is that two years earlier the Saudi Interior Ministry had already set a very strict and thorough system of laws that oversees any online violations.

The claimed purpose of this new set of laws according to the ministry is to support people online. However every single bylaw seems to convey the exact opposite.

Mandatory registration at the MOCI, commencing from the first of February is required for; Electronic journalism, websites of traditional media websites such as those run by TV channels and paper newspapers, advertisement websites, audio and visual media websites, cell phone broadcasting (messages, news, ads, pictures, etc), Broadcasting via other messages (messages, news, ads, pictures, etc). And then there is "voluntary" registration for; forums, blogs. personal websites, mail lists, Electronic archives and chat rooms.

Basically the definitions and bylaws are vague enough to prosecute anyone for anything. For example audio and visual websites are undefined and yet mandatorily required to register, so what if you have a weblog or a Youtube channel, will you be punished for not registering? A third of the country's population are expatriates and yet they have been excluded from being able to register any form of online journalism or advertising and are restricted to only forums, blogs, mailing lists and chat rooms. So does that have any implications for international classified ads websites that have Saudi pages such as this? Bottom line is that the whole concept of organizing the internet according to physical location and nationality of people online is preposterous and impossible.

Imagine this: you turn on the news to find out that your government has sent its special forces to publicly beat up elected officials who were speaking at a political gathering at a private residence. Officers in uniform drag an elected official outside by his feet and then hit at him with clubs and kick him while cameras are rolling and people are watching.

That's what happened in Kuwait last week, and a clip of the incident is below.

Dr. Obaid Al Wasmi is an elected representative with a seat on the Kuwaiti National Assembly. After he was publicly beaten until he lost consciousness, the police arrested him and he currently sits in jail accused of causing political unrest and insulting the monarch, among other vague accusations.

All local media have been instructed to black out any coverage of the controversy. The only news organization to ignore the ban, Al Jazeera, was soon afterwards closed down and its reporters deported.

Why has the government responded in this way to a lone academic? Dr Al Wasmi was part of a campaign whose goal was to question the prime minister on mismanagement of public funds. Some Kuwaiti analysts say that Dr. Al-Wasmi sought out some sort of confrontation with the government and that he used the podium at the political rally to escalate the situation.

But that is no excuse for the actions of the Kuwaiti government, whose main job is to uphold the constitution and maintain the rule of law, not to go around beating up dissenters, especially when the dissenter is a representative of the people.

If you were to ask me as a Saudi woman from one of the most conservative regions of Saudi Arabia, 'What is the one change that you would like to see?', there are many that come to mind: allowing women to drive cars, allowing women to enter government buildings, opening up more employment options to women and lifting the guardianship system under which every woman (no matter how old she is) has to have a male guardian everywhere she goes.

But when I get right down to it, there is one change that I would like to see happen yesterday: the criminalization of child marriages.

Hospital staff in a Saudi town were shocked last April when a 65-year-old Hepatitis B sufferer applied for a license to marry a healthy 11-year-old girl. In the absence of laws and regulations to prevent child marriages and prosecute those who take part, the staff had to rely on persuading the girl's parents to not go through with the marriage. Sadly, according to a report published in Al Riyadh (a local newspaper) they were unsuccessful.

Saudi activists have been pressuring the Ministry of Justice to issue a law against child marriages and prosecute those who allow their children to be raped under the pretensions of marriage for years.